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WILLIAM ffi SEWARD'S 



TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD. 



TOTTED BY 

OLIVE RISLEY SEWARD. 



"A mighty maze, but not without a plan." 

Pope. 



WITH TWO HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 

549 k 551 BROADWAY. 
1873. 



% 









Entered, according to Act of Coiigress, in the year 1873, by William H. Seward, Jr., Executor, 
and Olive Eislet Seward, Executrix, of the last Will and Testament of William; 
H. Seward, deceased, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



L. 




■ ^ a 



COITEITS. 



PART I. 

UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 
Chap. 

I. Auburn to San Francisco: Mr. Seward's Companions. — His Farewell to his 
Neighbors. —Western New York. — Niagara. — Canada and its Destiny. — Influ- 
ence of Immigration. — Africo-Americans. — Detroit. — Chicago. — President Grant. 
— Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. — Cedar Rapids. — Omaha. — New Classification 
of States. — Council Bluffs. — Bridges over Navigable Rivers. — Settlement of 
Western States. — Cheyenne. — The Rocky Mountains. — Influence of Mountain 
States. — Sherman. — Separation. — Mountain Nomenclature. — Weber Canon — 
Salt Lake City. — The Mormons, their Doctrines, Secular Priesthood. — Brigham 
Young's Sermon. — His Family. — Polygamy. — The Irrepressible Conflict in 
Utah. — The Shoshones. — Destiny of the Indians. — Sierra Nevada. — Reno. — 
Railroads. — Result of Abolition of Slavery. — Sacramento. — Arrival at San Fran- 
cisco. — Civilization of California. — Chinese Immigration, .... 3 
II. From San Francisco to Japan : The Vessels of the Pacific Mail Line. — Our Fel- 
low-Passengers. — "The Great Company of the Preachers," — The Chinese Pas- 
sengers. — The Great Event of the Voyage. — The Moods of the Sea. — A Still 
Greater Event. — The Loss of a Day. — The Gyascutus. — The Beginning of the 
End. — The Coast of Japan. — The Ocean-Fisheries, 29 

PART II. 

JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

I. Yokohama and its Vicinity : The Bay of Yokohama. — Natives and Foreigners. 
— Native Costumes. — Japanese Barbers. — The Tokaido. — Japanese Cemeteries, 
Gardens, and Temples. — Monks and Monasteries. — Kamakura. — The Great 
Statue of Buddha.-— The Daibutz," 37 

II. Visit to Yeddo. — Interview with the Mikado: Interview with the Japanese 
Prime-Minister. — Tremendous Storm. — Some Points of History. — The Mikado 
and the Tycoon. — Japanese Foreign Office. — Minister Sawa. — The Question of 
Saghalien. — The Tombs of the Tycoons. — A Speck of War. — The Delmonico 
of Yeddo. — Sketches of Yeddo. — The Interview with the Mikado, . . 49 

III. From Yeddo to Shanghai : Hiogo. — The Place of Massacre. — A Japanese Steamer. 
—The Gulf of Osaka.— A Harem on a Picnic— The City of Osaka.— The Ty- 
coon's Castle. — Japanese Troops. — Nagasaki. — Beautiful Scenery. — Christians 
of Nagasaki. — Japanese Character. — Departure for China. — Concluding Re- 
flections on Japan, ........... 76 



O^ U c^> i 




iv CONTENTS. 

Chap. 

IV. The Coast of China: Woosung. — U. S. Ship Colorado. — Shanghai. — European 
" Concessions." — A Mandarin Procession. — Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen. — Euro- 
pean and Chinese Civilization. — Foreign Prejudices against the Chinese. — The 
Shan Tung. — The Yellow Sea. — The News from France. — Chee-Foo, the New- 
port of China. — A Rough Voyage, ........ 94 

V. Up the Pei-ho River : Mouth of the Pei-ho. — Chinese Forts. — American Guns. — 
The Most Crooked and Mean of Rivers. — Chinese Dogs. — A Misunderstanding. 
—Captain Wang.— Our Flotilla.— The City of Tien- Tsin.— Aspect of the Coun- 
try. — Our Boat-Life. — Absence of Animals. — A Messenger from Peking. — A 
Chinese Trader. — Tung-Chow, 109 

VI. Arrival at Peking : Passing through Tung-Chow. — Good Behavior of the People. 
— The Road to Peking. — A Dangerous Highway. — Daniel Webster and John 
Adams. — A Review of Our Party. — A Grotesque Procession. — The Eastern Gate 
of Peking. — The Separation of the Party. — Anxiety for Mr. Seward. — In Woful 
Plight. — An Explanation. — Arrival at the U. S. Legation, . . . 124 
VII. Residence in Peking : Aspect of Peking. — The Walk on the Wall. — The Foreign 
Population of Peking.— Two American Chinese. — Native Wares. — The Foreign 
Ministers. — The Russian Minister. — The British Legation. — Influence of the 
United States. — The Hall of Science. — Mr. Seward's Audience with the Imperial 
Cabinet. — A Ladies' Day. — Chinese Ladies. — A Chinese Mansion, . 131 

VIII. Residence in Peking ( Continued) : The Decay of China. — The Temple of Heaven. 
— The Temple of Agriculture. — The Temple of Buddha. — The Chinese Bonzes. 
— The Temple of Confucius. — The Religion of China. — A Pleasant Reunion. — 
The Birds of Peking. — An Official Dilemma. — Interview with Wau-Siang. — In- 
fluence of Burlingame, ......... 153 

IX. Visit to the Great Wall : Preparations for the Trip. — Our Vehicles. — The 
Summer Palace. — Pagodas. — First Night under a Chinese Roof. — A Chinese 
Tavern. — Approach to the Great Wall. — The Mongolians. — The Cost of the 
Wall. — Inquisitive Chinese. — The Second Wall. — The Ming Tombs. — A Mis- 
guided Mule, 1*72 

X. Last Days in Peking : Cham-Ping-Chow. — A Chinese Inn. — The Roman Catho- 
lics in China. — The Cathedral. — The Tien-Tsin Massacre. — Christian Policy. — 
Interview with Robert Hart. — A Letter from Sun-Tajen and Chi-Tajen. — Letter 
from Prince Kung. — Interview with the Prince. — The Prince's Present. — De- 
parture from Peking, . . . 194 

XL The Return to Shanghai : Once more on the Pei-ho. — The Ladies at Tien-Tsin. 
— The Shan Tung. — Pigeon English. — Tempestuous Weather. — Visit to the 
Flag-ship Colorado. — Departure of Mr. and Mrs. Randall. — On board the Plym- 
outh Rock, 205 

XII. Up the Yang-tse-Kiang : The Mississippi of China. — Ching-Kiang. — Large Freights. 
— Nanking. — The Porcelain Tower. — A Specimen Brick. — Abundance of Game. 
— Scenery on the River. — Ku-Kiang. — Conversation with Mr. Drew. — Policy of 
the United States. — Han-Kow. — Ascent of the Promontory. — Magnificent View. 
— Cheerful Aspect of Han-Kow. — Excursion to Woo-Chang. — A Disagreeable 

Adventure, 210 

XIII. Return to Shanghai : Departure from Han-Kow. — Chinese Military Art. — A 
Marvellous Echo. — The Imperial Canal. — Approach to Chin-Kiang. — The 
United States Steamer Alaska. — Running down a Junk. — An Apology from 
the Viceroy. — The Comprador. — Chinese Ladies. — Embark on an English 
Steamer, 223 



CONTENTS. v 

Chap. 

XIV. From Shanghai to Hong-Kong : Bad Weather. — Cold Weather. — Variety of Sea- 
men. — The Ship's Accommodations. — Hong-Kong. — Beautiful Scenery. — Old 
Acquaintances renewed. — Native and Foreign Population, .-- - . . 230 
XV. From Hong-Kong to Canton : The Chinese Coasting-Trade. — Chinese Smugglers. 
— Canton River-Banks. — Aspect of Canton. — The British Concession. — The 
American Hongs. — The Consul and the Tou-tai. — The Diet of the Cantonese. 
— Manufactures of Canton. — The Temples of Canton, . . . 233 
- XVI. Canton {Continued): A Chinese Villa. — The Hall of Ancestors. — A Chinese 
School-Room. — Another Villa. — An Opium-Den. — Extent of Opium-Smoking. — 
* The Chinese Chronometer. — The Street of Malefactors. — The Place of Exe- 
cution. — A City of the Dead. — Canton at Night, .... 244 
XVII. At Hong-Kong again : Chinese Emigration to the United States. — The Canton 
Fisheries. — American Houses in China. — A Combination of Gamblers. — A 
Dinner at the United States Consulate. — Mr. Seward's Speech. — Oriental and 
Eastern Civilization. — Policy of China. — Prospects of China, . . 253 
XVIII. A Glance at Cochin China : The Steamer Provence. — Island of Hainan. — Our 
Fellow-Passengers. — The Mouth of the Saigon River. — The City of Saigon. — 
French Aptitude for Colonization. — French Photographs. — The Queen of Cam- 
bodia, 262 

PART III. 

THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, STRAITS OF MALACCA, AND 

CEYLON. 

I. The China Sea, Singapore, and the Straits of Sunda : Our Distance from 
Home. — Calm Seas and Temperate Breezes. — Singapore. — A Dispatch from 
Boston. — The People of Singapore. — Their Habitations. — Life in the Tropics. 
— A Dutch Steamer. — Our Crew. — A Question of Races. — Rather Hot. — Banca 
and Sumatra. — The Straits of Sunda, . . . . . . 271 

II. The Capital op Java: The City of Batavia. — The Hotel des Indes. — A New- 
England Sabbath. — Malay Servants. — The King's Plain. — Population of Java. 
— The Queen of the East. — Departure for Buitenzorg. — Manner of Travelling. 
— The Vice-Regal Residence. — The Climate of Java. — The Baths of Buiten- 
zorg, 280 

III. Excursion into the Interior : A Balking Horse. — Cultivation of Rice. — Tropical 

Flowers. — Surabaya. — The Regent Prawiro. — Dutch Colonization. — How Java 
is governed. — Bandong. — The Regent and the Interpreter. — A Gouty Monarch. 
— The Regent's Income. — How he spends it, .... 293 

IV. Mr. Seward at Bandong : Excursion to the Cascade. — A Perilous Road. — 

The Water-Fall. — An Evening at the Palace. — The Bayaderes. — Two Dwarfs. 
— A Chorus of Peasants. — The Little Princesses. — An Excursion to Tankoe- 
ban. — Peruvian Bark. — The Top of the Volcano. — An Enchanting Scene. — 

The Japanese Prince, . 302 

V. At Batavia again. — The Malays: Farewell to Bandong. — A Tropical Break- 
fast. — A Breakfast in the Botanical Gardens. — A Princely Native Artist. — 
Dutch Colonization. — Character of the Malay Race. — Chinese Immigration, 310 
VI. From Batavia to Madras : An Uncomfortable Steamer. — An Accident. — At 
Singapore. — British Hospitality. — The Port of Penang. — A Loyal Englishman. 
-—Bay of Bengal. — Half- Way Round the World. — Arrival at Ceylon. — Point de 
Galle. — A Short Visit to the Shore. — A Hindoo Crew. — Off Pondicherry, 315 



vi CONTENTS. 

PART IV. 

BRITISH INDIA. 
CnAP. 

I. Madras : Madras from the Sea. — Governor Napier. — The Government House. — 
A Hindoo Girls' School. — Bishop Heber. — British Dominion in India. — Rear- 
Admiral Cockburn. — Machinery of Government. — A Meeting of the Executive 
Council. — Lord Cornwallis. — The Legislative Council. — Hindoo Music, . 327 
II. Madras {Continued): An Excursion to Arcot. — Railroads in Hindostan. — Ap- 
pearance of the Country. — The Homage of Flowers. — Cauvervpak. — The Na- 
tive System of Cultivation. — Visit to a Bramin. — Schools. — A Car of Jugger- 
naut. — The Dutch Reformed Mission. — Back to Madras. — The Portuguese 
Settlement. — Gindy Park. — A Diamond Merchant. — Lord and Lady Napier. — 
The Normal School, 338 

III. From Madras to Calcutta : The Surf at Madras. — On the Bay of Bengal. — 

The Lion-Whelps. — The Hoogly. — The Viceroy's Invitation. — Earl and Count- 
ess Mayo. — Glimpses of Calcutta. — The Baboo. — The Baboo's House and 
Harem. — The Government House, ....... 350 

IV. Calcutta {Continued): The Maharajah of Putteeala. — Oriental Magnificence. — 

Kali Ghaut. — The Temple. — Hindoo Idols. — Kali. — Siva. — A Mohammedan 
Mosque. — The Reading of the Budget. — Indian Finances. — The King of Oude. 

—The Prince of Oude, 360 

V. Barrackpore and Serampore : Barrackpore Park and its Beauties. — Magnifi- 
cent Trees. — The Menagerie. — The Lion-Whelps. — Serampore.^-Its Mission- 
aries and Mission-Schools. — Return from Barrackpore. — Fort William. — The 
Woman's Union Missionary Society and its Schools, .... 368 
VI. From Calcutta to Benares : Courtesy of the East India Railway Company. — 
Unattractive Scenery. — The Scenery improves. — Aspect of the Country and 
the People. — A Stop at Patna. — A Tiger Hunter. — The Cultivation of the 
Poppy. — The Maharajah of Benares. — A Night on the Ganges. — A Brilliant 
Display. — Glory Hallelujah. — A Compliment to Mr. Seward, . . 372 
VII. Benares : The Sacred City of the Hindoos. — The Cradle of Buddhism. — Sarnath. 
— Remarkable Towers. — The Holy River. — The Ghauts. — Singular Architecture. 
— The Mosques and their Minarets. — A Picturesque Scene on the River-Bank. 
— Siva and Doorga. — Manufacture of Idols. — Magnificence of Benares, . 3*78 
VIII. Allahabad, Lucknow , and Agra : Allahabad, the City of God. — Cawnpore. — 
Lucknow, the Capital of Oude. — Extent of the Country. — Arrival at Agra. — A 
Marvellous Monument of Arms, Arts, and Empire. — Akbar the Great. — His 
Vast Architectural Works. — The Pearl Mosque. — Futtehpore Sikra. — Its Great 
Wall.— The Tomb of Sheik Selim Chishti.— The Panch Mahal.— Akbar's Tomb. 
— His Wealth. — His Horses and his Elephants. — Weighing his Presents, 385 
IX. Secundra and the Taj-Mahal : The Tomb of Akbar. — Derivation of the Name 
of Secundra. — The Taj-Mahal, the Tomb of the Banoo Begum. — Description 
of the Taj. — The Tomb of King Cotton. — The Inferiority of Indian Cotton. — 

Mode of packing it, 396 

X. Delhi, the Mogul Capital : A Vivid Contrast to Agra. — Ludlow Castle. — Brief 
Sketch of Hindoo History. — The Persians. — The Greeks. — The Arabs. — Sultan 
Mahmoud. — The Mongols or Moguls. — Foundation of Delhi. — Successive 
Changes of Site. — The Kootub Minar. — A Singular Iron Shaft. — The Mogul 
Tombs. — The Tomb of Jchanara. — The Jumna Musjid. — The Imperial Palace. 
— Farewell to Delhi, 404 



CONTENTS. vii 

Chap. 

XI. Umballa and Putteeala : Meerut, the Scene of the Outbreak of the Great 
Mutiny. — Hindoo Pilgrims. — First View of the Himalayas. — Invitations to 
Putteeala. — Journey thither. — The City of Putteeala. — Coaches or Elephants ? 
— Entrance into Putteeala. — A Magnificent Procession. — Our Palace, . 414 
XII. Putteeala {Continued) : Oriental Displays and Diversions. — The Menagerie. — 
The Prisons. — The Heir-Apparent. — An Elephant-Fight. — Jesters and Jug- 
glers. — The Royal Palace. — Magnificence of the Maharajah. — The Durbar.— 
The Young Prince. — Superb Presents. — A Magnificent Salon. — The Maha- 
rajah's Conversation with Mr. Seward. — An Exhibition of Fireworks, . 420 

XIII. A Glance at the Himalayas : Departure from Putteeala. — Along the Banks 

of the Jumna. — Protection from the Sun. — Reception at Pindarrie. — An Il- 
lumination. — Kalka and Kussowlee. — The British Commissioner. — A View of 
the Himalayas. — An Irish Home, . . . . . . . 431 

XIV. Allahabad and Jubbulpoor : An Interesting Debate. — Earl Mayo, the Viceroy 

of India. — His Murder. — The Vindhya Mountains. — Industrial Activity of Jub- 
bulpoor. — An Elephant-Ride. — A Night Voyage on the Nerbudda. — Romantic 
and Beautiful Scenery. — -Hindoo Tenderness for Animals, . . . 437 
XV. Bombay : The Ghaut Mountains. — A Cosmopolitan City. — The Natives of Bom- 
bay. — A Mixed Population. — Chinese, Siamese, Javanese, Cingalese, Sikh, 
Afghan, and Cashmerian. — The Races of the South and the North, of the East 
and the West. — Parsee Customs, — Parsee Religion. — Hindoo, Mohammedan, 
and Parsee Disposal of the Dead. — Admiral Coekburn. — The Great Heat. — An 
Excursion to Elephanta, ......... 442 

XVI. An Excursion to Goa : A Voyage on the Coast of Malabar. — A Perilous Pre- 
dicament. — Dubious Navigation. — Situation of Goa. — Official Courtesies. — 
History of Goa. — The Old City.-^-St, Francis Xavier. — Miraculous Cures. — 
Character of Xavier. — Public Institutions. — The Governor's Villa. — Historical 
Reminiscences. — A Goa Poet. — A Cordial Farewell, . . . . 451 

XVII. Last Days in Bombay : The Byculla Club. — Mr. Seward's Speech.— His Grate- 
ful Acknowledgments to his Entertainers. — The Indies of the East and the 
Indies of the West. — Growing Civilization of the East. — A Progress irresisti- 
ble. — The New Concord. — Policy of the Anglo-Saxon Race. — Miss Wessner. 

— Departure from Bombay, 460 

XVIII. From Bombay to Aden : Once more at Sea. — The Steamer Deccan. — Mr. Sew- 
ard's Remarks on India. — Natural Religion. — The Characteristics of the Hin- 
doo Mind — England's Hold on India. — The Regeneration of India. — The Island 
of Socotra. — Arrival at Aden. — An Extinct Volcano. — Wise Old England ! — 
A New Stage of the Voyage. — Red-Haired Negroes, !l 465 



PART V. 

EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

The Red Sea and Suez Canal : The Gate of Tears.— The Rock of Perim.— 
The Port of Mecca. — Imaginary Terrors. — Pleasant Weather. — The Coasts of 
the Red Sea. — The Division of the Races. — A Refreshing Atmosphere. — The 
Track of the Israelites. — Suez. — The Ancient Canal. — The New Canal. — Its 
Inauguration. — Its Prospects, ........ 479 



viii CONTENTS. 

Chap. 

II. From Suez to Cairo : The Bedouin Arabs. — A Wady. — Goshen. — Nubian Troops. 
— A Splendid Sunset, — The Palace of Repose. — The Khedive. — The Popula- 
tion of Egypt. — The Khedive's Improvements. — A Visit to the Harem. — The 
Female Slaves. — Egypt and Utah, 488 

III. Cairo and the Pyramids : The Road to the Pyramids. — The Style of the Vice- 

roy. — Interior of the Great Pyramid. — The Sphinx. — Mariette Bey. — Use of 
the Pyramids. — Rapacious Arabs. — The Phoenix. — The Site of On. — Ruins of 
Heliopolis. — The Tree of the Holy Family. — Mohammed Tauphik. — The Amer- 
icans in Egypt. — The Citadel of Cairo. — A Museum of Antiquities. — Modern 
Cairo.— The Copts.— The Nilometer.— The Tombs of the Caliphs.— The Ceme- 
teries of Cairo — The Mosques. — The Dancing Dervishes. — Ghezireh. — Polyga- 
my.— The Cairo of To-day, 498 

IV. Up the Nile : Embarkation at Ghizeh. — The Pyramids of Saccara. — The Two 

Deserts. — Siout. — The American Vice-Consul. — Sultan Pacha. — Character of 
the Nile. — Slave-Boats. — Arab Villagers. — The Birds of the Nile. — The Popu- 
lation on the Banks. — Domestic Animals. — Personal Arrangements. — A Tip- 
pling Monkey, 517 

V. From Abtdos to Thebes : The Ruins of Abydos. — The Sheik of Bellianeh. — A 
Misunderstanding. — A Dinner in the Ruins. — A Night in the Temple. — Explor- 
ing the Ruins. — By whom were they built ? — Germs of Religious Ideas. — The 
Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Seward's Birthday, ..... 52C 

VI. Thebes and its Ruins : What Thebes is now. — A Grand Reception. — A Fed> 
eral Salute. — The Scenery of the Nile. — The Temple of Luxor. — The Houses 
of the Consuls. — History of Luxor. — Karnak. — The Hall of the Gods. — King 
Shishak. — Sphinx Avenues. — We dine with the Vice-Consul. — The Colossi. — 
The Ancient Tombs. — The Tombs of the Kings. — Animal Worship. — The Ra- 
meseum. — Grandeur, of Thebes, . . 534 

VII. Esneh, Edfou, Assouan, and Phil.2E : The Coptic Convents. — Toussef and his 
Donkey. — Our Steamer aground.— The Ruins of Esneh. — The Temple of Edfou. 
— Assouan. — Its Surprising Activity. — Its African Population. — The Ancient 
Quarries. — Philse and the Cataracts of the Kile. — A Monument of the First 

French Republic, . 552 

VIIL Last Days in Egypt: The Vice-Consul's Harem. — Kenneh and its Pottery. — 
The Sugar of Egypt. — Memphis. — Its Ruins. — The Downfall of Idolaters. — 
Again at Cairo. — Conversation with a Pacha, — Alexandria. — Aspect of the 
City. — Interview with the Khedive. — Sir Henry Bulwer. — Pompey's Pillar. — 
The Khedive's Yacht. — Concluding Reflections on Egypt, . . . 563 

IX. Jerusalem: A Levantine Coasting-Steamer. — The Green Fields of Sharon. — Jaffa. 
— Ramleh. — Lydda. — Rural Population. — First View of Jerusalem. — Mr. Sew- 
ard's Reception. — The Sultan's Firman. — Church of the Holy Sepulchre. — 
Religious Intolerance. — Mount Calvary. — The Via Dolorosa. — The Mosque of 
Omar.— The Mosque El-Aksa, 5*78 

X. Jerusalem and its Neighborhood : Bethlehem. — The Grave of Rachel. — The 
City of Jerusalem.— The Mount of Olives.— The Tomb of Zachariah. — The 
Tomb of Absalom. — An American Jew. — Bethany. — Pilate's Palace. — The 
Greek Church in Palestine. — The Jews of Jerusalem. — Their Wailing-Place. — 
The Jewish Sabbath. — Attendance at the Synagogue.— Bishop Gobat. — De- 
parture from Jerusalem. — Jaffa and Beirut, 594 



CONTENTS. ix 

Chap. 

XI. From Palestine to Greece : Impressions of Palestine. — The Egyptian Race. — 
Egyptian Civilization. — Phoenicia and Palestine. — The Four Religions. — What 
we owe to the Jews. — Present State of Palestine. — The Island of Cyprus. — 
The Cesnola Collection. — Smyrna. — An Excursion to Ephesus. — The Seven 
Sleepers. — Mr. Wood's Researches. — The Temple of Diana. — The Isles of 
Greece. — Tinos. — The City of Syra. — An Illumination, . . . 607 



PART VI. 

EUROPE. 

I. Athens and Constantinople : Athens. — The Piraeus. — The Hymettus. — The Ilys- 
sus. — Mr. Tuckerman. — Queen Olga. — Grecian Ruins compared with those of 
Egypt and Hindostan. — Modern Greece, the Mexico of Europe. — The Sea of 
Marmora. — Taking Constantinople by Surprise. — A Cordre-temps. — All's Well 
that Ends Well. — The Sultan Abdul- Aziz. — A Busy Day. — Excursions. — 
Charms of Constantinople. — The Old Seraglio. — Fourth of July. — Robert Col- 
lege. — The Bosporus. — Turkish Women. — The New Palace. — Untimely Visit. 
— Kiamil Pacha. — Audience with the Sultan. — Departure from Constanti- 
nople, . . ... . . . .-.-.'. . . 627 

II. Hungary and Austria: On the Danube. — Varna. — Rustchuk. — Wallachia. — 
German Travellers. — What shall we say of Turkey '? — Reflections on the Future 
of the Turks. — Orsova. — The Iron Gate. — Hungarian Loyalty. — Buda-Pesth. 
—Contrast of European and Asiatic Civilization. — The People of Pesth. — The 
Bridge of Buda. — The Buildings of Buda. — The History of Hungary. — The 
Danube. — Vienna. — John Jay. — Count Von Beust. — Politics of Austria, 654 

III. Italy : Venice. — American Knights Templars. — Florence. — Attractiveness of the 

City. — Rome. — The Coliseum. — Cardinal Antonelli and the Pope. — Interview 
with the Pope. — The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. — The Schools of Art. 
— Naples. — Vesuvius. — Early Civilization on the Mediterranean Coast. — Na- 
ples, the Newport of the Roman Empire. — Genoa. — Susa. — Prospects of 
Italy, 669 

IV. Switzerland and France : Geneva. — The Alps. — The Tunnel of Mont Cenis. — 

Passports. — American Fondness for Switzerland. — Berne. — Swiss Statesmen 
and Politics. — Distress of France. — The Franco-German War. — Lord Lyons. — 
Mr. Washburne. — Versailles. — The French Assembly. — President Thiers. — A 
Dinner with President Thiers. — Condition of France. — M. Drouyn de Lhuys. — 
M. Laboulaye. — Dr. Evans and the Empress Eugenie. — Aspect of Paris. — Pros- 
pects of France, '._... . . . 685 

V. Germany, England, and Home: Belgium. — Berlin. — Mr. Bancroft. — Humboldt. 
— The German Empire. — Its Rise and Grandeur. — Its Policy. — Hamburg. — A 
Free City. — A Handsome City. — On the Thames. — Activity of its Commerce- 
Greatness of London. — Government Machinery in Great Britain. — Its Slow 
Working. — Rural Beauty of England. — On Board the Java. — Her Passengers. — 
Moutrose-on-Hudson. — Return to Auburn. — Mr. Seward's Speech to his Neigh- 
bors, ; 708 

Index, 721 



LIST OF ILLTTSTKATIONS. 



PAGE 

Portrait of Mr. Seward (on steel) 

Frontispiece 

Mr. Seward's Garden at Auburn 1 

Mr. Seward's Home 4 

New Suspension Bridge, Niagara Falls. 5 

Cheyenne 10 

Summit 11 

Wahsatch Range 12 

Leutze's " Course of Empire." 13 

Devil's Gate, Weber Canon 13 

Pulpit Rock 14 

Thousand-Mile Tree 15 

Salt Lake Valley 16 

Mormon Tabernacle 17 

Brigham Young's Residence 19 

The Remnant of a Tribe 23 

Mouth of Big Cottonwood Canon 24 

San Francisco 26 

Cliff House, San Francisco 27 

Golden Gate 28 

Meeting of the Steamers in Mid-ocean. 31 

Fusi Yama, Coast of Japan 34 

Yokohama, Japan 38 

Japanese Barbers 39 

Japanese Girls 40 

Japanese Cemetery 41 

A Japanese Garden 43 

Tea-house on the Tokaido 44 

Group on the Tokaido 45 

Temple at Kamakura 46 

Daibutz 47 

Japanese Bonzes 48 

American Legation at Yeddo 52 



PAGE 

Japanese Officer of State 55 

Japanese Interpreter, in Court Dress.. 57 

Interior of Sheba 59 

Tombs of the Tycoons 60 

Nippon-Bas, Yeddo 61 

British Legation, Yeddo 61 

Hamagoten „ 63 

Japanese Musician 64 

A Book-store at Yeddo 66 

Daimios' Quarter, Yeddo 69 

United States Consulate, Hiogo 76 

Temple at Osaka 78 

Street in Osaka 80 

Entrance to Nagasaki 83 

Nagasaki Harbor 84 

Temple of Buddha at Nagasaki 85 

View of Decima 86 

Woosung 94 

Mandarin Procession 96 

Custom-House, Shanghai 98 

Mouth of the Yang-tse-kiang 103 

Promontory of Shan-Tung 104 

Chinese Fishing-smack 105 

Chinese Dogs Ill 

Boats on the Pei-ho River 114 

Chinese Agriculture 119 

Western Gate, Peking 1 32 

Lupis-lazuli Cat 135 

Ancient Observatory, or Hall of Science 139 

Prince Kung 142 

Yang-Fang 147 

Wife of Yang-Fang. (From a Photo- 
graph by himself.) 148 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATION* 



XI 



PAGE 

Long Nails 149 

Yang-Fang's Smoking-room 151 

Chinese Gate-way 152 

Temple of Heaven 155 

Tablet Hall 157 

The Temple of Confucius 161 

Gate of the Temple of Confucius, Pe- 
king 162 

Image of Confucius 163 

Chinese Cart 173 

The Litter. 174 

Summer Palace. . . 176 

Bridge on the Grounds of the Summer 

Palace 177 

Nan-Kow Pass 180 

The Great Wall 182 

Gate at Nan-Kow 183 

Gate-way at Ming Tombs 189 

Avenue to the Ming Tombs 192 

Bridge at Nanking, and Porcelain Tow- 
er before its Destruction 211 

The Upper Yang-tse-kiang 212 

Little Orphan Island 213 

Chinese Theatricals 220 

Silver Island, on the Yang-tse-kiang. . . 225 

Scene on the Imperial Canal 229 

Hong-Kong 231 

Trading-Junk 232 

Street in Canton 236 

Entrance to the Temple of Honan. . . . 240 

Poon-ting-gua's Villa 245 

Opium-Smokers 247 

Chinese Tombs 252 

View in Hong-Kong 253 

Saigon, at the Mouth 263 

Native of Saigon 265 

Artisan's House at Saigon 267 

Queen of Cambodia 268 

Singapore 279 

Street in Batavia '281 

Married Woman of Java 282 

A Javanese Girl 284 

Scene in Java 286 

Government House, Java 287 

Lily Pond, Palace Grounds, Java 288 

Tropical Foliage, Java 290 

Javanese Fruit 291 

Scene in Java 292 

The Regent Prawiro da Kedya 296 

The Regent of Bandong, with his Offi- 
cers 300 



PAGE 

A Hostelry in Java 301 

Dancing-Costume 304 

Dancing-Girl 305 

Bath at Sindanlaya 311 

Javanese 314 

Government House, Madras 328 

Madras 337 

The Surf at Madras 349 

Residence of Richard McAlister, Cal- 
cutta 353 

The Maharajah of Putteeala, Grand 
Commander of the Star of India. . 361 

Palace of the King of Oude 366 

Barrackpore 371 

Maharajah of Benares 375 

Nautch Girls 377 

Benares, from the Ganges 378 

Great Buddhist Tower at Sarnath 379 

Carving on Buddhist Tower at Sarnath. 380 

Ghauts at Benares. 382 

Temples at Benares 384 

Queen's College, Benares 384 

Residency at Lucknow 386 

Exterior of the Fort 388 

Inlaid Screen, Tomb of Mina Begum, 

Agra 389 

Scene on the Road to Futtehpore Sikra. 390 

Saracenic Gate 391 

Pillar in Akbar's Council-Chamber. . . . 393 

Panch Mahal 393 

Carved Pillars in the Ruins of Futteh- 
pore Sikra 394 

Akbar's Tomb at Secundra 395 

Taj-Mahal 398 

Cotton-Merchants, Agra ... 402 

The Taj, from the Fountain 403 

The Kootub Minar 407 

Elephants on the March at Putteeala. . 418 

A Conjurer at Putteeala 423 

Elephants with Howdahs 425 

The Prince of Putteeala 427 

The Himalayas 436 

The Nerbudda 441 

Parsee Children 445 

Entrance to the Caves of Elephanta . . . 449 

Aden 471 

Ismailia 484 

View on the Nile 489 

A Girl of Cairo 497 

The Pyramids of Gizeh 499 

The Sphinx 501 



xn 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

A Street in Cairo 50*7 

Street in Cairo 509 

Mosque and Houses in Cairo 510 

Interior of a Mosque, Cairo 512 

Cairo, from the East 516 

A Woman on the Nile 524 

Temple of Dendera 530 

Thebes 534 

Obelisks at Karnak 536 

Columns at Karnak 539 

Gate at Karnak 540 

Capitals of Columns at Esneh 551 

Youssef and his Donkey 553 

Phike 560 

Pompey' t s Pillar 5*72 

Jaffa 579 

Our Caravan 580 

Dome of the Church of the Holy Sep- 
ulchre 586 

Mosque of Omar 591 

Bethlehem 595 

Mosque on the Mount of Olives 598 



PAGE 

Jews' WailingJ?lace 601 

Tower of David, Jerusalem 606 

Ancient Syra and Modern Hermopolis. 621 

A Greek Official 622 

A Group of Heads from the Cesnola 

Collection 623 

Athens 627 

A Greek Woman 628 

Bridge at Eieusis 629 

The Temple of Victory, Athens 631 

Albanian Costume 635 

Ancient Pillar at Constantinople 639 

Fountain of the Seraglio 640 

Turkish Woman in Street Dress 643 

Turkish Girl in a Harem 645 

Count von Beust 666 

Cardinal Antonelli 674 

Genoa 683 

Drouyn de Lhuys 702 

Hamburg 712 

A Map showing Mr. Seward's Route 

through Asia, Africa, and Europe. . 720 






PART I. 

UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



"■0-.^- v'v ■- 




CHAPTEE 



AUBURN TO SAN FRANCISCO, 




Mr. Seward's Companions. — His Farewell to his Neighbors. — Western New York. — 
Niagara. — Canada and its Destiny. — Influence of Immigration. — Africo-Americans. — 
Detroit. — Chicago. — President Grant. — Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. — Cedar 
Rapids. — Omaha. — New Classification of States. — Council Bluffs. — Bridges over 
Navigable Rivers. — Settlement of Western States. — Cheyenne. — The Rocky Moun- 
tains. — Influence of Mountain States. — Sherman. — Separation. — Mountain Nomen- 
clature. — Weber Canon. — Salt Lake City. — The Mormons, their Doctrines, Secular 
Priesthood. — Brigham Young's Sermon. — His Family. — Polygamy. — The Irrepres- 
sible Conflict in Utah. — The Shoshones. - Destiny of the Indians. — Sierra Nevada. 
— Reno. — Railroads Result of Abolition ^f Slavery. — Sacramento. — Arrival at San 
Francisco. — Civilization of California. — Chinese Immigration. 



Auburn, August 9, 1870. — Every study must have a beginning 



and an end. 



These notes begin at Mr. Seward's embowered home, 






i UNITED STATES^ CANADA, AND PACIFIC CCEAX. 

whence our journey will begin, and they will end here, where, with 
God's blessing, the journey will end. 

Mr. Seward is accompanied by Olive Risley Seward, his adopted 
daughter, and by her sister, Miss Risley. The former, in writing 
these notes, records his political, social, moral, and philosophical 
observations and reflections, in his own words. Hanson A. Risley 
accompanies him only to the Pacific. Mr. Alexander W. Randall 
and Mrs. Randall, and Mr. George F. Seward and Mrs. Seward, 
will join him at San Francisco. 

A thousand neighbors and friends are gathered around, whose 
parting words are made more touching by the fears and anxieties 
which they express concerning Mr. Seward's impaired strength. 
His resolute nature suggests the encouragement they need : " Travel 
improves health instead of exhausting it." " The journey, though 
long, is now made easy by steam on land and sea." " When I 
come back, remember to meet me at the eastern door of the railway- 
station, though we part at the western one." 

Niagara Falls, August 10th. — Leaving the pleasant shore of the 
Owasco Lake, we crossed the Cayuga, passed around the foot of the 
Seneca, with its beautiful village of Geneva, looked upon the 
Canandaigua from its encircling hills, and came to a rest at Roch- 
ester, where the branches of the Central Railroad unite. Thence, 
this morning, along the shore of Lake Ontario to Niagara. 

The plain of "Western New York, gently descending from the 
lakes to the Hudson, and, under a traditional policy, well improved 
with canals and railroads, has, from the earliest period of colonial 
settlement, been a national thoroughfare. 

The enlightened political economy, as well as the liberal princi- 
ples and elevated social sentiments for which the State of New York 
is distinguished, is strongly reflected in the constitutions, laws, and 
manners, of the new Western States. 

We see, at Niagara, for the first time, the new bridge which has 
been built just below the great cataract. Like the old one, it is 
■graceful enough ; but, " insatiate " bridge-makers, " could, not one 
suffice ? " George P. Marsh is right. Civilization is a constant 



CANADA AND ITS DESTINY. 5 

warfare of man against Nature. Nature, however, was made for 
man, not man for Nature. 

Chatham, Canada, August 10th. — It was rather a surprise to 
meet a United States consul at Clifton when we were less than 




NEW SUSPENSION BRIDGE, NIAGAKA FALLS. 

twenty-four hours from home. But why do we go through Canada 
instead of keeping our own lake-shore % Because the Canadian 
route is the more direct one to Detroit. Moreover, have we not 
come abroad to see foreign countries, rather than our own ? 

Canada, though no less fertile, is more thinly inhabited than 
the American shore. Immigration obeys political instincts. It 
prefers the established equality and social security of the United 
States. It will be long before either Canada or Mexico can realize 
its invigorating power. This may seem hard, but it is clear that 
only one great nation can be built on one continent at one time. 
The remedy for both of those countries is the same — accession to 
the United States. Canada has hesitated long, but it will see and 
feel this truth at last — that it is better to be an equal constituent 
member of a great, powerful, and free nation, than a small, feeble, 
and isolated state, even though equally free. 

At Chatham, mainly a colored settlement, Mr. Seward has been 



6 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

received with much respect and kindness by the people, who seem 
comfortable and respectable. They are fugitives who made their 
escape from slavery in the United States, years ago, on the " un- 
derground railway." Now that slavery has been abolished there, 
doubtless the burden of their song is, "Carry me back to ole 
Yirginny, to ole Yirginny shore." The Africo-American popula- 
tion is the last one that will desire to leave our country. A hun- 
dred freedmen, about Fortress Monroe, were induced by high offers 
and great persuasion, during our civil war, to colonize the Isle-a- 
Yache, in Hayti. They complained, moaned, sickened, and lan- 
guished, and the government was obliged to bring them back. 

Detroit, August 11th. — The interesting incident of our stop 
here, has been a visit to Mr. Seward of a daughter of Dr. Abel F. 
Fitch, a client of his who died of a broken heart, while Mr. Seward 
was struggling to save him from an unjust conviction for conspiracy. 

In the War of 1812, Detroit was the theatre of a humiliating 
surrender and capitulation, which were hardly retrieved — -just as 
Bull Run was the scene of a humiliating rout, the evils effects of 
which only the mighty issues involved enabled the nation to sur- 
mount during a four-years' conflict. 

The city grows steadily in opulence and refinement. 

Chicago, August lAih. — Without a prototype, a marvel not 
merely of American progress, but of all civilization. We asked an 
English lady in New York, who had passed two weeks here, which 
of our sea-coast towns she admired most. She answered, " Chicago." 
Though an inland, border town, it seems nevertheless a city by the 
sea. Built in a lagoon like Yenice, it has raised itself high and dry 
above the flood. As mercantile as Amsterdam or Liverpool, it has 
neither the hoarding avarice of the one nor the unscrupulous 
cupidity of the other. Just now grasping, with an iron arm, the 
broad and fertile shores of the North Pacific, how splendid seems 
the destiny of Chicago ! 

We meet here the President of the United States. His charac- 
teristic modesty has until now been a theme of universal praise. 



CEDAR EAPIDS. 



But mankind have always expected demonstration of power, pomp, 
or speecli from their rulers. Will they excuse tile want of it even 
in the great General of the Civil War ? 



& j 



Omaha, August 16th. 

" It's over the river, and over the sea, 
And it's over the water to Charlie." 

It is over the Mississippi Eiver, and it is over the Missouri 
Eiver, and over a sea of prairie five hundred miles, from Chicago to 
Omaha. Seventy years ago, the Mississippi Eiver divided the 
United States from the dominion of France. Sixty years ago Lewis 
and Clark found only wild Nature and savage men beyond the 
Missouri. Fifteen years ago, the States of the Union were politi- 
cally as well as geographically classified as the Northern States 
and the Southern States. To-day, it is not a parallel of latitude, 
but an uncertain and shifting meridional line, that determines their 
classification. 

Of the towns which have sprung up on the plains, we notice 
Cedar Eapids — not for its superiority to others, but as a specimen 
of an inchoate Western city. During ten minutes' stay there, we 
saw the suburban cottages, with pointed roofs, of the Norwegian 
settlers, surrounded by dark-green meadows, covered with flocks 
of geese and eider-ducks. We heard airs from " Trovatore " on a 
Chickering piano, in a dwelling-house not yet painted or plastered. 
We saw a Mansard mansion of the speculator in city lots, its lawn 
graced with a bevy of croquet-players. There seem to be all sorts 
of churches for all sects of Christians — one surmounted with a 
Catholic cross, and one with dome and minaret borrowed from the 
Mohammedan mosque. There are restless express-agents, nimble 
telegraph-messengers, noisy baggage-men and porters. Even the 
Washington City colored boy is seen there, sauntering lazily 
through the crowd, and repeating, " Black your boots and shine 
'em up ? " with the poetical variation, " A shine for a dime." Two 
young lady-cousins come into the cars, and soon let us into more 
secrets of matrimonial engagements and other interesting events 



8 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAX. 

which are occurring in the "society" of Cedar Eapids than we 
have room to relate. 

Council Bluffs, on the Missouri Eiver, the connecting station of 
the Eastern railroads with the Union Pacific, is fifteen miles below 
the historical Council Bluffs, where the first treaty between the 
United States and the Indians of the plains was celebrated. "Will 
not Congress its " canon fix 'gainst " this practice of confounding 
history by transposing geographical names % 

There is a fierce competition here between Council Bluffs and 
Omaha for the transshipment of passengers and freight. The new 
bridge, which is being built over the Missouri, is likely to decide it 
by bringing the two flourishing towns into one. 

By-the-way, how rapidly the construction of this " mighty maze " 
of railroads is breaking up the ancient idea of the sac-redness of 
river navigation against interruption by bridges ! It cost a long 
and exhausting litigation to ascertain whether the Legislature of a 
State, or even the Congress of the United States, could authorize 
the throwing of "a bridge across the Hudson or the Ohio, or even 
across a boatable inlet of Delaware Bay. 

While, however, they are building a bridge here, we must be 
content to cross the Missouri by a ferry. A huge and heavy steam- 
boat, a double-ender, starts from a point high above Council Bluffs, 
and is skilfully steered first downward, then upward, through the 
dashing, muddy waters, to a landing-place far below Omaha. The 
passengers of several converging Eastern trains rush promiscuously 
toward the broad deck with their baggage, movables, and " things." 
Do you see that little wooden shanty, on the receding bank, with 
two bottles of whiskey in the window, and the monitory words over 
the door, "Last Chance?" Everybody tells his business to every- 
body, and everybody asks everybody his opinions and prospects. 
Boston, New York, and Chicago merchants, bankers, and printers, 
are going to establish branches, agencies, and printing-presses, along 
the railroads in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Cali- 
fornia; lithe, active, and bright, all-loquacious, and at the same 
time dogmatic politicians, who fasten themselves tenaciously upon 
"the stranger," whether lawyer, priest, trader, or farmer, to gain 



CHEYENNE. 9 

an opinion on the probable result of the presidential election, yet 
three years distant, of the prospect of an early resumption of specie 
payments, or of the duration, the immediate result, and the ulterior 
consequences of the war which broke out only a week ago in Europe. 
Did not our servant, William Freeman, who has just come to his 
political rights under the fifteenth amendment, feel his importance 
when called on to expound these high mysteries % See that group 
of juvenile Italians, with violins and harps realizing a profuse con- 
tribution in reward for a rather doubtful performance of "II Bacio." 
Hear this strong-minded woman narrate to a skeptical audience 
her successful achievement in establishing woman's suffrage in 
Wyoming and Utah. An express-agent tells Mr. Seward that he 
has just sent to Auburn the largest pair of elk-horns in the velvet 
that could be found in Nevada. That cluster standing near the 
wheel-house, have sold out their farms in Missouri, and are going 
to look for new ones in Willamette Yalley or Southern California. 
This group of Indians, gay with feathers and paint, are Dakota 
chiefs returning to their tribe, to relate the wonders they saw when 
sitting around the "big kettle" which the "great father" hung 
over the fire for them at Washington. This sturdy fellow in blue 
is an Irish recruit of the United States Army, going to join his 
regiment at Laramie, accompanied by a wife, six rosy-cheeked chil- 
dren, a spaniel, terrier, two brindle cats, and a speckled hen. It is 
altogether too much to expect that the entire family will escape the 
perils of Indian warfare. It is a notable feature of the motley 
crowd that it contains not one mere laboring man or Avoman. 
Whence, then, and how is the labor to come which is to irrigate the 
deserts, build the roads, and open the mines % We may safely leave 
the question to its practical solution. American progress and civi- 
lization "know no such word as fail." 

We record our thanks to General Auger for the kind atten- 
tions shown us at the garrison, and for his orders providing for 
our safety and comfort through his wide department ; and to the 
judges, members of the bar, and other citizens for .their public 
and private hospitalities- 



10 



UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



Cheyenne, Augiist 17th. — Onward and upward, a niglit and a 
day in a distance of five hundred miles ; we have gained a height 
of five thousand feet on the slope of the Rocky Mountains. The 
country seems, nevertheless, a level plain. There is neither crag, 
nor rock, nor dell ; and even the flow of the beautiful Platte River, 
though quick and free, is without cascade or rapids. We have passed 
almost imperceptibly from a landscape of Indian corn and wheat 
fields, orchards, and vineyards, to an endless slope covered with 
short and grayish, but nutritious blue-grass, late the pasturage of 
countless buffalo-herds, now replaced by scattered droves of lank 




CHEYENNE. 



cattle, driven here from Texas an.d Mexico. The gopher freely dis- 
ports himself in our way ; the antelope, as if under a fascination, 
shyly gazes upon us with his soft blue eyes ; and the prairie-dogs, 
sitting erect at the doors of their tenements, solemnly review us 
from their thousand cities. We expected, on arriving here, to see 
the towering Black Hills, and perhaps the more distant Snowy 
Range ; but the thermometer has fallen to 36°, and the barometer 
we know not how low. Heavy clouds rest on the earth all around 
us, and nothing can be seen beyond or over them. 



INFLUENCE OF MOUNTAIN STATES. 



11 



The Territory of Wyoming, of which Cheyenne is the capital, 
has a population outside of the town not exceeding two thousand, 
Cheyenne grew rapidly during the construction of the Pacific Rail- 
road, but now, suffering a decline, it may number twenty-five hun- 
dred. It has, however, just been connected by railroad with 
Denver, and so with St. Louis. The territorial government, there- 
fore, seems a machine prepared for future rather than immediate 
use. The army secures the people against intrusion by Indians, 
and keeps the peace. Governor Campbell, with the Secretary of 
State and the Surveyor-General, received us at the station, and, 
apologizing for the straitness of their dwellings, delivered us over 
to General King and General Bradley, who have cordially conferred 
upon us the freedom of the mess. 




What is to be the political influence of these new mining and 
mountain States % Their founders are energetic, enterprising and 
persevering men. Mountaineers are always frugal and brave, as 
well as intense lovers of freedom.- Their loyalty will never fail, if 
the Union shall continue to deserve it. 



12 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

Sherman, August 19^A.— Sherman, eight thousand feet above 
the sea ! We have made a winding way between the crests of the 
Black Hills, and these are only a lower tier of the snow-clad moun- 
tains. -The pass is treeless, shrubless, flowerless ; the rocks on the 
mountain-sides massive, brown, monotonous. What were the Eocky 
Mountains made for? Some of their uses are obvious. A water- 
shed, they irrigate the continent, while they stimulate human 
activity by obstructing movement and hiding mineral treasure. 
Now gently descending the western slope five hundred feet, we 
come upon the great grassy plain of Laramie, on which civilization 
is making rapid advancement. Five hundred feet lower, through 
beds of crumbling red sandstone, we land on a broad floor of cannel- 




WAH8ATCH RANGE. 



coal. Prudent Nature foresaw the Pacific Kailroad and the mining- 
shaft. Onward forty miles, downward how many feet we do not 
know, in the Wahsatch Valley, we come to a settlement which bears 
the ominous name of Separation. . It is the parting between the 
tributaries of the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. 



MOUNTAIN NOMENCLATURE. 



13 



How odd and yet how significant is the nomenclature of the 
mountain scenery : " Eecl Desert," " Table Rock," " Black Butte," 
" Bitter Creek ! " Now, slowly by winding grades, we climb the 
Waksatch Range, only five hundred feet lower than Sherman ; we 
stand on the eastern rim of the central basin of the continent. We 




DEVIL 8 GATE, WEBEE CANON. 



recognize and hail the rugged yellow cliff and far-reaching plain, 

which, under the light of a gorgeous sunset, Leutze has copied in his 

great fresco in the Capitol, " Westward the Course t>f Empire takes 

its Way." Hence we hurry rapidly downward toward the reservoir 
3 



14 



UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



of the basin, the broad, blue Salt Lake. The face of the Wahsatch 
Mountains wears no resemblance to Atlantic scenery. These dis- 
jointed masses of rocks, fractured and shivered, look as if they had 
resisted lightning, tempest, ice, and flood, for ages. Sublime devas- 
tation ! The Weber River, here only a foaming torrent, has worked 
out for itself an arched passage darker and more majestic than 
Gothic art ever designed. The mountain-dwellers call it the Devil's 
Gate. There are miles where a declivity, otherwise unbroken, pre- 
sents at irregular intervals a high, conical basalt rock, standing like 
the tower of a castle whose domes and walls have been swept away, 
and buried in the earth. One of these bears the name of Pulpit 





PULPIT EOCK. 



Rock, and, though inaccessible, it is believed by the credulous that 
Brigham Young from its level summit rallied his hosts to repel the 
army of General Johnson. 

In the Weber Canon, at the foot of the Wahsatch Range, the 
torrent subsides into a quiet stream. On its bank is an old and 
solitary pine-tree, which bears a board on which is inscribed, 



SALT LAKE CITY. 



15 



" One thousand miles from Omaha." Here all travellers rest and 
meditate ; and many, proud of the great achievement, record their 
names. Let no one suppose that, because Salt Lake Plain is called 
a valley, it is therefore level, smooth, or grassy. The plain is 
but a table-land, broken by mountain-spurs, and hilly ranges rise 
from the bosom of the lake itself, affording pasturage for herds of 
wild-horses. 




- 



THOTTSAND-MILE TREE 



Salt Lake Oil?/, August 20th. — At Ogden, where the Salt Lake 
Valley Railroad intersects the continuous Pacific Pailroad, and 
where many other railroads are soon to meet it, we were taken by 
a special train, which Brigham Young had sent for us. On arrival 
at the station here, we were received by General De Trobriand. 

Wearied and worn with mountain-travel, a hostelry even less 
neat and cheerful than the Town send House, managed by an Eng- 
lishwoman, the second of four wives, would have been acceptable 
to us. 

The town, though so unique and isolated, is full of visitors from 



16 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

all parts of the United States and Europe, animated by a common 
sentiment, curiosity concerning the Mormons— how they came to 
be here ; how they live and act ; with what woes they threaten the 
nation and mankind, and by what means, moral, judicial, political, 
or military, the anomalous sect shall be brought to an end. 




SALT LAKE VALLEY. 



We attended divine service this morning in a small and plain 
Episcopalian chapel. In the afternoon, we were accompanied to 
the Tabernacle by Mr. Hooper, Territorial Delegate in Congress. 
The congregation, composed chiefly of women and children, "with 
here and there a traveller," must have numbered seven or eight 
thousand. On the platform were seated the entire hierarchy, con- 
sisting of the president, the apostles, and the high council, the sev- 
enties, the high-priests, the elders, the priests, teachers, and deacons. 
Among these dignitaries we recognized merchants, railroad men, 
mechanics, and farmers, and it is quite manifest that the priesthood 
is a shrewd, sagacious body of secular persons. The communion is 
celebrated every Sunday, every worshipper participating. The 



THE MORMONS, THEIR DOCTRINES, ETC. 



17 



ceremony, though attended with less solemnity, is conducted in 
the same manner as in the more popular Protestant denominations, 
with the difference that water is used in place of wine, a special 
prayer being offered that the substitution may be approved. The 
first preacher argued that, according to divine promise, the kingdom 
of God came upon the earth immediately after the departure of the 
Saviour ; that this kingdom has a key ; that the Church early lost it, 
and that the Latter-Day Saints have found it ; that it is nothing 
less than the true principle of marriage, namely, that marriage is 
not merely a union for earthly life, but a spiritual bond extending 
through time and eternity : the Mormons having unlocked the gates 
with the newly-discovered key, are inviting and expecting all nations 
to enter and build up the kingdom of God. 















MORMON TABERNACLE. 



During the service thus far, Brigham Toung sat a silent and 
meditative observer. He now rose, and a profound stillness came 
over the congregation. He dwelt briefly on the devotion, zeal, 
faith, constancy, conflicts, and sufferings, of the founders of the 



18 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

Mormon Church. From its past triumphs, and its present security, 
he inferred the favor of the Divine Author of the Christian religion. 
Like the previous speaker, he seemed to avoid the subject of po- 
lygamy, while he claimed for the new church a close conformity 
to the practices of the early Christians, and the enjoyment of new, 
special, and continuous revelations. ISTo Christian teacher claims for 
the writings of Isaiah or Jeremiah, or of Matthew, Luke, or John, 
more divine illumination or infallibility than the speaker demanded 
for the attested manuscripts of Joseph Smith. After descanting, in 
a few glowing words, upon the certain acceptance of the new faith 
immediately, and throughout the whole world, he warned the saints 
of the danger of falling from the faith, saying, with all the vehemence 
of prophetic denunciation, " Hell awaits the backslider ! " After a 
kind allusion to Mr. Seward's presence, the sermon ran to incoher- 
ent and pointless exhortation. The service ended, Brigham Young 
greeted Mr. Seward, and asked leave to visit him in the evening. 

The veneration which a Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or Method- 
ist congregation manifest toward a prelate of their order, at whose 
hand they have received a sacrament, is indifference itself compared 
with the awe and reverence paid to the President of the Latter-Day 
Saints as he retired from the Tabernacle. 

Brigham Young, accompanied by four sons and three elders, 
passed the long evening in conversation, religious, political and 
secular, with Mr. Seward. At the close, with an air as free from 
embarrassment as the patriarch Jacob might have shown in a like 
case, he invited Mr. Seward to visit some of his houses the next 
day, and see his family. 

August 22r7. — The President came with carriages, and drove us 
first to visit his wife Emeline, a matron of fifty, with her ten chil- 
dren, from the ages of twenty-five downward. Thence to the house 
of Amelia, who seems thirty-five years. She has been married two 
or three years, and has no children. She invited the ladies to try 
her new piano. We then drove to the dwelling of the first wife. 
This house, the first which Brigham Young built in the city, 
shows him to be a skilful mechanic, with a considerable knowledge 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S FAMILY. 



19 



of architecture. She was surrounded by her sons, Hiram Young, 
Brigham Young, Jr., and their several wives, who all seemed to 
regard their aged mother with proper filial affection. Thence we 
repaired to the " Bee-hive," a complex building, or group of build- 
ings, in which the remaining families of Brigham Young reside. 
They have different suites of apartments, connected by corridors 
or piazzas with the garden, a common dining-room, and a saloon 
used as a music-hall and chapel. The furniture and appointments 




BRIGHAM YOUtTG's RESIDENCE. 



of the " Bee-hive," like those of the other houses, are frugal but 
comfortable, and order and cleanliness prevail in them all. We 
were received here by eight wives and their children. The chil- 
dren, a large proportion of whom are girls, with blue eyes and 
flaxen hair, strongly resemble their father and each other. All are 
educated upon the academic standard of the Western country. All 
we saw were healthful, intelligent, sprightly, happy and mutually 
affectionate, without regard to the difference of mothers ; equally 
free from boldness and awkwardness. The mothers, women of 



20 UNITED STxlTES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

sad deportment, are entirely devoted to their children. All the 
wives are uneducated, except Amelia, who was before marriage an 
accomplished school-teacher. If there is any jealousy among them, 
it escaped our penetration. The mind of the first wife is impaired 
either by age or by trouble. She spoke severely of Gentile censo- 
riousness. We were served at every house with the choicest of 
native fruits and native wine. Except the coachman, we saw no 
servants. At the "Bee-hive," each mother sits with her children 
at table, and the several families are served in the order in which 
they are arranged. Family worship is conducted night and morning 
by the patriarch, and attended by the entire household. Brigham 
Young's manner toward his wives is respectful, and toward his 
children dignified and affectionate. In presenting them severally 
as they came in groups, with a kind smile for the particular mother, 
he spoke in this way : " This is our delicate little Lucy," " This is 
our musical daughter," " This is our son George, who has a mathe- 
matical genius," and so on. At the end of the visit here, Brigham 
Young said to Mr. Seward : " You have seen eleven of the sixteen 
wives with whom I live, and nearly all of my forty-nine surviving 
children." 

" But," said Mr. Seward, " you are represented as saying that 
you do not know how many wives you have." The President 
explained that, besides the wives who are married for time, the 
Mormons believe in sealing other wives only for eternity, and, in 
regard to such women, he may have made the remark attributed to 
him. 

Polygamy, not at first adopted by the Mormons, is an adventi- 
tious feature of their system. It was authorized by a revelation to 
Joseph Smith, which was posthumously published. The Church 
at first desired to suppress it, but it bore the requisite official attes- 
tation of the prophet, and therefore could not be rejected without 
shaking the foundation of the whole system. The apologies which 
they make for it are not altogether destitute of plausibility. It 
promised to stimulate population when the sect in a Territory, new 
and isolated, expected no accession by immigration, either foreign 
or domestic, except of European converts. More women than men 



POLYGAMY. 21 

came as such converts. Polygamy provided shelter and material 
comforts for supernumerary women who might otherwise fall into 
neglect, want, and possible infamy. So far it has not proved in- 
compatible with the education and training of children in public 
schools, nor with the maintenance of order and tranquillity among 
the people. Time enough, however, has not elapsed, perhaps, nor 
are the conditions of the community sufficiently matured, fully to 
develop the evils of the institution. Marriage is not exclusively a 
matter of religious belief. It is a social institution. To ascertain 
the just and needful relation between the sexes in social life has 
been one of the experimental studies of mankind, from the earliest 
ages, in all countries. The marriage of one man with one woman, 
constituting what we call the family relation, is the result of that 
great study of civilization. It is universally accepted by Christian 
nations, the only nations which enjoy a matured civilization. Po- 
lygamy is antagonistic to, and incompatible with, the existence of 
the family. "When the two institutions are brought into contact in 
any country, an irrepressible conflict ensues. In all the nations of 
the East the harem has hitherto prevailed in that conflict, with the 
results of not merely the degradation but the enslaving of woman, 
and the demoralization and corruption of the entire social body. 
This is the conflict which is just now beginning in Utah. The end 
is not doubtful, and, with the rapid increase of what is called the 
Gentile population, coming to develop the mineral and agricultural 
resources of the central regions of the continent, that end cannot 
be distant. 

The Mormons, as a religious sect, soon to cast off the heteroge- 
neous and obnoxious institution of polygamy, may survive, and, 
like other religious and ecclesiastical associations, enjoy a long exist- 
ence. How long, may depend upon the persecution it may pro- 
voke. The field of purely religious inquiry is infinite, and the spirit 
of search is eternal. It demands, and will in all civilized states 
henceforth command, toleration. 

In the aspect of political economy, Utah is a wonderful success. 
A population of nearly one hundred thousand, doubling every ten 
years, occupying a soil naturally destitute of vegetation, has, by irri- 



22 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

gation and other processes, produced an abundant granary for sup- 
plying the wants of immigrants on their way to the new mountain 
States. and Territories on every side. Whatever may be the future of 
Utah and the Mormon sect, Brigham Young will have an historical 
character. He was originally an uneducated carpenter, in youth a 
townsman of Mr. Seward's at Auburn. The latter, while seeing no 
reason to question Young's sincerity in his eccentric religious faith 
and practices, deems it unjust to deny him extraordinary ability, 
energy, and perseverance, as a founder of an American State. His 
failure, however, in one of his designs, perhaps at the time the most 
cherished of all, will serve as a warning to future American colo- 
nizers. Leading his exiled and persecuted band from the banks 
of the Mississippi across the wilderness, he refused to stop until he 
had found an asylum outside of the territory and jurisdiction of the 
United States. Scarcely, however, had he discovered this land of 
refuge in Mexico, before the Government acquired title, and ex- 
tended its authority over not only that region, but the whole coun- 
try to the Pacific Ocean. 

ElcJw, August %3d. — Brigham Young, attended by a group of 
wives and children, took leave of Mr. Seward at the station in Salt 
Lake City ; and a committee, composed of Mormon elders, came 
with us by special train to Ogden. There two palatial cars awaited 
us, which had been sent across the Sierra Nevada by Mr. Seward's 
friends at Sacramento. These are furnished with a dining-room, 
well-supplied pantry, kitchen, and sleeping-apartments. 

Salt Lake, though fed by saline springs, is the reservoir of many 
mountain-streams, the Weber River, Bear River, Blue Creek, and 
others. Its waters are shallow and unwholesome ; but we saw 
cattle feeding near it, and land-birds flying over it. Its beach is 
always thickly incrusted with salt, produced by solar evaporation. 
Large timber grows in the mountain-canons, and the soil, wherever 
irrigated, is prolific of cereals, grasses, and fruits. The peach, 
plum, and grape, are unsurpassed, even in California, Our last 
sunset view of the lake, taken a hundred miles west of Ogden, was 
one which we are not likely to forget. The great orb, suspended 



DESTINY OF THE INDIANS. 



23 



over the waters, kindled them to a dazzling blaze, while the sky 
was clothed in a drapery of purple and gold, which extended in 
broad and graceful festoons across the entire horizon. 

Here, at Elcho, we find a wretched and squalid remnant of the 
Shoshones, once the proprietors of the region we are surveying. 
Must these Indian races indeed perish before the march of the 
white man ? It would seem so ; they could only be saved by con- 
version to the usages and habits of civilization, but all past efforts 
to that end, from the Atlantic to the centre of the continent, have 




TIIE REMNANT OF A TRIBE. 



failed. The experiments of the same sort on the Pacific coast are 
no more promising. The Aztec race, though it has not increased 
in numbers, has not diminished under Spanish conquest and coloni- 
zation. Exalted to citizenship, suffrage, and education, the Indians 
of Mexico may be saved ; but it is noticeable that intermarriages be- 
tween the pure Indians and the Creoles and European immigrants 
have practically ceased, and that Mexico exhibits therefore a nation 
divided bv castes, of which the native one is the most numerous, 



24 



UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



while the foreign one is the most wealthy and intelligent. One 
cannot but hope that the Aztecs of Mexico may prove an exception 
to the elsewhere universal process of extermination. 

Reno. — On leaving Elcho, we followed a mountain-pass which 
is barricaded with basalt columns, more picturesque than the ad- 
mired Palisades of the Hudson, and this pass brought us out on 
the bank of the Humboldt River. We have followed its wild and 



detank 




MOUTH OF BIG i'OTTi >\\V< n .1) CAM.iN. 



winding way as it flows over an alkaline bed, destitute of vegeta- 
tion, two hundred and fifty miles, until it spreads its waters over 
a broad and sterile plain and sinks into the earth. From this 
plain we began the eastern ascent of the Sierra Nevada. The 
poisonous mineral dust, raised by the whirlwind, was excoriating 
as we passed over this desert of the desert, seeing neither tree nor 
stream after leaving the lost river. 



SACRAMENTO. 25 

We declined here a pressing invitation to diverge and visit 
Virginia City, as we had declined at Salt Lake, Ogden, Cheyenne, 
and Omaha, to diverge to other points of mining and political in- 
terest. The frequency of these invitations is strongly suggestive 
of the rapidity with which branch railroads and common roads are 
entwining the giant limbs of the new members of the republic. 

What is the secret of this sudden and prodigious increase of 
national energy in the prosecution of internal improvements \ It 
is one of the first fruits of the abolition of slavery. Conservatism 
of the constitutional compromises in the interest of slavery, of 
course in practice, became conservatism of slavery itself, and this 
principle, developed in 1800, and gaining strength during fifty 
years, has been effectually obstructive of material improvement 
and national progress. 

Sacramento, August 25th. — The desert is passed at Reno. The 
mountain scenery becomes fresh and cheerful with plentiful ever- 
green forests, and, where they have been removed, rich meadows. 

Mr. Stanford, Mr. Crocker, and Mr. Mills, met us on the way, 
and accompanied us down the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, 
a long journey, though the distance is short. The highest en- 
gineering skill must have been employed in effecting this passage 
through mountains so rugged, steep and wild. This morning the 
engineer whistled " Down brakes ! " to avoid collision with a train 
which seemed to be coming from the opposite direction, but which 
proved to be the end of our own train. We left massive brown 
mountains, deep-blue lakes, and' canons clothed in evergreen, and 
entered a broad plain, lightly shaded with groups of laurel and live- 
oak. Newly-harvested wheat-fields, and fields yet covered with 
native oats, are boundless. Although the engineer had brought us 
here in advance of the appointed hour, Mr. Seward was neverthe- 
less greeted with a salvo, and it was not without difficulty that we 
made our way through the friendly mass who were gathered to 
welcome him. 

A drive through city and suburbs, and over the race-course, a 
dinner at Mr. Stanford's, and an evening reception at Mr. Crocker's, 



26 



UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



closed the day, giving us a pleasing acquaintance with the refined 
and spirited society of the capital of California. 

San Francisco, September 1st. — Mr. Seward, desirous to avoid 
an appearance of seeking a renewal of the hospitalities extended to 
him here last year, on his tour to Alaska and Mexico, effected a 
quiet entrance into the town, and we have been the guests, since 





SAN FRANCISCO. 



our arrival, of his old friend and travelling-companion, Mr. Hastings. 
We have visited the Cliff House ; and made for all, but Mr. Seward, 
a first acquaintance with the Seal-Rocks, their amphibious inhabi- 
tants, and the Pacific Ocean. We could not describe, if we should 
attempt, the bewildering laud excursion ol two days, and the 
magnificent entertainment at Belmont, which Mr. Ralston gave us, 
or our beautiful steam-yacht excursion around the harbor and bay. 



CIVILIZATION OF CALIFORNIA. 



27 



General Scofielcl, late Secretary of War, now at the head of this 
department, and Admiral Winslow, the hero of the Kearsarge, 
commanding the Pacific squadron here, have entertained us gener- 
ously. These and other hospitalities, all crowded into one short 
week, closed last night with a ball at the house of Mr. Avery. 

What caprices have marked the civilization of California ! 
Wrested from the native Indians, one hundred and fifty years ago, 
to enlarge the dominion of Spain ; parcelled fifty years afterward, 
in large tracts, among bookish priests devoted to the conversion 
of the dispossessed proprietors — hardly had the cathedrals and 





CLIFF HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO. 



schools been established, when revolution tore the territory from 
the hold of Spain, and the Republic of Mexico confiscated and 
seized the entire domain. Then came purchase, conquest, and 
rapid colonization, by the United States. These have left, with few 
exceptions, neither Mexican proprietors to occupy, nor Spanish 
priests to teach, nor Indians to be taught. The Catholic churches 
were founded chiefly in 1776-78. How little did their builders 



28 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN". 

understand the mighty revolution that had just then broken out 
on the other side of the continent — a revolution that was destined 
to modify not only the civil but also the ecclesiastical systems of the 
earth ! 

San Francisco, though only twenty years old, already assumes 
the aspect, tone, and manners of an inter-continental emporium, a 
counterpart to the Atlantic metropolis. 

The absorbing topic here is, Chinese immigration. Mr. Seward 
has declined an invitation given him by the anti-Chinese party to 
explore the Chinese quarter, and see how unfit its inhabitants are 
to become citizens of the United States ; and also a like invitation 
from the Chinese settlers to make the same exploration, to see how 
harmless and profitable that colonization is. The Republican party 
have lately acquiesced in the policy of exclusion, which has been 
insisted upon so long and so strenuously by the Democratic party. 
Mr. Seward protests firmly against this, and teaches that immigra- 
tion and expansion are the main and inseparable elements of civili- 
zation on the American Continent, and nowhere more needful or 
beneficent than on the Pacific coast. He says confidently, to both 
parties, that all attempts will fail to suppress or stifle either of those 
invigorating forces. 






GOLDEN GATE. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO JAPAN 

The Vessels of the Pacific Mail Line. — Our Fellow-Passengers. — " The Great Company 
of the Preachers." — The Chinese Passengers. — The Great Event of the Voyage. — 
The Moods of the Sea. — A Still Greater Event. — The Loss of a Day. — The Gyas- 
cutus. — The Beginning of the End. — The Coast of Japan. — The Ocean-Fisheries. 

Steamer China, Pacific Ocean, September 1, 1870. — Our party 
having received its promised accessions, we embarked at noon. 
More kind friends could not have come on board to take leave if 
we had been long residents of San Francisco. If Mr. Seward had 
been thirty years younger, such a parting would even then have 
taxed his strength. 

We passed the sometimes turbulent, but always majestic Golden 
Gate, with scarcely a disturbance of the ship's balance, and began 
our voyage on a calm sea and under a bright sky. 

September 4:th. — The vessels of the Pacific Mail Line are side- 
wheel steamers, and in accommodations and appointments are sur- 
passed only by the palatial boats on the Hudson River and Long 
Island Sound. The China, four thousand three hundred tons bur- 
den, is the smallest of them all. We enjoy an uninterrupted 
promenade seven hundred feet in circuit on the upper deck. We 
have sixty cabin -passengers, and might carry comfortably twice 
that number. Among them are General Vlangally, the Russian 
Minister returning from St. Petersburg to Peking, and half a 
dozen English civil officers coming from " home " to their posts in 
Japan and China. "Great," it must be confessed, "is the com- 
pany of the preachers :" Fifteen American missionaries with their 



30 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

wives and children ! — the elder families returning, and the younger 
going for the first time to fields of labor in Japan, China, Siam, 
and India ; United States naval officers, on their way to join the 
Asiatic squadron, four English and as many American youths just 
emerged from college on an Eastern torn* ; a United States Treas- 
ury agent, going to inspect the Oriental consulates ; and one Amer- 
ican office-seeker, at least, proceeding to lay his claims before the 
Emperor of China at Peking. The gentlemen amuse themselves 
with gymnastic games, the ladies with music and books. An ex- 
pert Japanese juggler entertains us in the cabin. In the steerage, 
are five hundred Chinese returning home. They pay less than half 
price, and are fed with the simple fare of their country. Knowing 
no use of beds, they sleep on the floor. In the middle of their 
cabin they have made, with canvas, a dark room for opium-smoking. 
"When on deck, they appear neatly clad, and amuse themselves with 
unintelligible and apparently interminable games of chance. The 
annual immigration of Chinese to the United States is twelve thou- 
sand. They are invariably successful. Half the number go back 
to China, either on visits or to remain. Our freights consist of 
Mexican silver dollars, manufactured goods, agricultural machines, 
carriages, furniture, flour, butter, fruits, drugs, and patent medicines. 
These go in exchange for teas, silks, rice, and Chinese emigrants. 

September 6th. — The great event of the voyage occurred this 
morning. All were on deck, in a state of pleasant excitement. 
At seven o'clock, precisely the hour which the captain had fore- 
told, the ship America, eighteen days from Yokohama, appeared 
in a direct line before us, under full pressure, and with square 
sails set. Signals were promptly exchanged, and, to avoid colli- 
sion, each ship turned slightly from its course and stopped. The 
America has eighty cabin-passengers and four hundred Chinese. 
The cabin-passengers on either vessel cheered loudly, the Chinese 
looking on silent and thoughtful. A well-manned gig, with an 
officer in the stern, came bounding over the waves, and deliv- 
ered to us Chinese and Japanese (European) newspapers, with a 
bag of letters from her passengers. We, in return sent on board 



THE GREAT EVENT OF THE VOYAGE. 31 

tlie latest American newspapers, and a mail well charged with 
letters to our friends at home. The America's boat was then 
hoisted to its davits, the walking-beams of the two giant ships 



MEETING OF THE STEAMERS IN MID-OCEAN. 



gracefully bowed to each other, the wheels gently revolved, the 
passengers repeated their cheers, and a gun from either deck an- 
nounced that the meeting was over. Each vessel resumed its 
course, and in a few moments not even a spy-glass could discover 
the waving of handkerchiefs or other signal on the deck of the 
America.* 

If we gave to the eastern-bound travellers the first news of the 
European war, and of the death of Admiral Farragut, they in ex- 
change gave us intelligence of an expected war between .the Euro- 
pean powers and the Chinese Government, in consequence of the 
recent dreadful massacre at Tien-Tsin. Every one is astonished 
that Mr. Seward persists in his purpose of visiting Peking. He 
says that France, in her present disabled condition, cannot make 
war against China, and, without the lead of France, no "Western 
nation will. 

* The telegraph from Shanghai reports that the America was burned in the harbor 
of Yokohama, August 25, 18*72. 



32 UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

September lUh. — Those who would know the sea, have need to 
study its varying moods and aspects. They must see it in the later 
hours of cloudless night, when it reflects the bright stars and con- 
stellations ; they must see it in the morning twilight, when its 
broad surface seems .contracted to a small, dark lake, and then un- 
der the illumination of the dawn it resumes its illimitable expanse. 
Doubtless it is terrible in its more serious moods by reason of its 
vastness, darkness, and powerful agitation, all elements of the sub- 
lime. Happily for us, we have not yet witnessed those moods. 

September 16th. — It was a mistake to pronounce our meeting 
with the America, on the 6th, the event of the voyage. A 
greater one has just occurred. Our last date is the 14th. This 
note is written on the 16th. The former entry certainly was 
made yesterday. The chronometer marked eight o'clock at 
night at Greenwich, at the very hour when our clock, which 
keeps the running time, marked eight o'clock in the morning. We 
are half-way around the world from Greenwich, and have lost just 
half a day. It is quite clear that, if we should continue onward 
making the same discrepancy of time, we should have lost a whole 
day on arriving at Greenwich. "We might postpone the readjust- 
ment of our ship's time until we reached Greenwich, but the 
scientific world has wisely decided that this readjustment shall 
be made in every case by compromise on the 180th meridian, and 
therefore, instead of striking out a half-day here, we strike out a 
whole one. 

If the absolute loss of one whole day out of our lives is a dis- 
tressing thing to think of, we may console ourselves with Red 
Jacket's profound reflection. When a missionary had delivered be- 
fore the Seneca nation, in council, a homily in the usual style on 
the shortness of life, and the necessity of improving its fleeting 
hours, he called on them for an expression of their sentiments on 
that important subject ; Red Jacket, having duly consulted with 
the chiefs, head men, women, and warriors, responded in their be- 
half: "Red men have all the time there is going; they do not 
see that white men have any more." 



THE COAST OF JAPAN. 33 

September 20th. — Four thousand miles from San Francisco. 
The sea has come down from the long, surging swell of a few days 
past, and is now smooth and glassy. We have entered the outer 
belt of the hot circular current which warms the coasts of Japan, 
Siberia, and Alaska. 

A brig under full sail is seen, though at a great distance, mov- 
ing eastward. Everybody tries the spy-glass to make her out. 
When all have failed, a passenger, noted for controversialism, pro- 
nounces that the brig is the Gyascutus, from Macao, bound for 
Valparaiso, freighted with coolies. We all start at once, and ask, 
"How do you know?" "I assert it to be the fact," he replies ; 
"let him prove the contrary who can. If this is not sufficient 
proof, it is at least the same form of argument that our preacher 
used in his sermon last night." 

September 23d. — The beginning of the end ! Every inch of the 
deck, bulwarks, stanchions, rigging, and boats, has been scoured, 
tarred, or painted, and the whole ship is clean as a Shaker meeting- 
house. Our five hundred steerage-passengers are confined within 
a rope-enclosure on the forward-deck — they appearing in new and 
shining cotton clothes, with pates freshly shaven. A dozen women 
are seen for the first time. All are engaged, especially the women, 
in dropping handfuls of rice and small pieces of colored paper into 
the sea, to propitiate the gods for a safe arrival. Flying-fish sur- 
round us ; one white-breasted gull has come to attend us into port ; 
and a whale, the only one we have seen on the voyage, is spouting 
in the distance. 

t 

September 2Mh. — The coast of Japan rises in a long, gray outline 
over the dark sea, but Fusi Yama veils his head, and refuses to take 
notice of our coming. 

We have crossed the Pacific Ocean. How much it is to be re- 
gretted that we must make such long stretches, and yet see so little ! 
How profitable it would be to study the North-Pacific American 
coast, the shores of Puget Sound, the Territories on the Columbia 
River, and Alaska, in a near future the great fishery, forest, and 



34: UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 

mineral storehouses of the world ! — the Aleutian chain of islands 
hereafter to be the stepping-stones between the two continents. 
"We have lost a sight, also, not only of the Sandwich Islands, but 
of Australia, a fifth continent on which a kindred people are devel- 






FUSI YAMA, COAST OF JAPAN. 



oping a state that may at some future day challenge comparison 
with our own republic. 

The Northern fisheries known in commerce are chiefly above 
the 34th parallel. The United States and Russia own more than 
half of the coast on both sides of the Pacific, north of that parallel. 
Mr. Seward left, as a legacy in the State Department, an inchoate 
negotiation of a treaty for reciprocity in those fisheries. Its im- 
portance may be estimated by recalling the controversies and con- 
flicts between the United States and Great Britain, during the last 
hundred years, which have arisen out of the fisheries on the Atlan- 
tic coast. 



PART II. 
JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



CHAPTER I. 

YOKOHAMA AND ITS VICINITY. 

The Bay of Yokohama. — Natives and Foreigners. — Native Costumes. — Japanese Bar- 
bers. — The Tokaido. — Japanese Cemeteries, Gardens, and Temples. — Monks and 
Monasteries. — Kamakura. — The Great Statue of Buddha. — The Daibutz. 

Yokohama, September 25th. — Night closed with more than 
moonless darkness. With a trne seaman's solicitude for the good 
name of his ship, Captain Freeman still promised that we should 
anchor before midnight. Who could think of sleeping when the 
lights of our first Asiatic port were so near ? We walked the deck 
around and around, from stem to stern ; we tried whist, we drew 
uncounted symphonies from the piano — but no consolation. The 
ship scarcely moved, and the equinoctial 24th day of September 
became the longest of all the days in the year. Time lagged more 
and more tediously between the hours of eleven and twelve. At 
last we gave it up, and went to rest. We were wakened by the 
ship's gun, and the slow dropping of the anchor. The morning 
brought an explanation. The ship's clock had been retarded, and 
did not announce the hour of twelve until the chronometer marked 
half-past two. 

The bay of Yokohama is as spacious, and its surroundings are 
as beautiful, as those of Hampton Roads. The landscape recedes 
gracefully from the shore, and high above the beautiful scene Fusi 
Yama's sacred brow reflects the glowing smile of the morning sun. 
The hills and valleys wear all the freshness of spring. It is Sun- 
day ; the harbor is gay with the flags of many nations on men-of- 



38 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

war and merchant-ships, and is made more animated by the quaint 
Japanese craft and their shouting, grotesque, native managers. 

Yokohama, September 2Qth. — The United States minister, Mr. 
De Long, Captain McCrea, of the Asiatic squadron, Mr. Shepard 
the consul at Yeddo, Mr. Walsh, and other American citizens, came 
on board, and after kind expressions of welcome and congratulation 
conducted us to Mr, Walsh's residence. 

Captain McCrea received Mr. Seward and his friends with na- 
tional honors on board the United States steamship-of-war Monocacy. 

Accustomed at home to the intermingling of all classes, condi- 
tions, and races, in subjection to one system of laws and tribunals, 
with common standards of morals and manners, we are as yet un- 
prepared for the different constitution of society we find here : 
instead of one community, two, standing side by side, each inde- 
pendent of the other — the one native, the other foreign. 

The native population of Japan is forty millions, all of the Mongo- 
lian type ; * the so-called European population, five thousand, tempo- 
rarily residing here from various nations, including the United States. 
These foreigners are gathered upon tracts of land, one, three or six 
miles square, called concessions, adjacent to native cities in the chief 
ports of this maritime empire. These foreign settlements are cor- 
porations, regulated and protected by the several foreign nations, and 
are copied in all respects from Western models, while the unpaved 
native cities, built of firs and cedars, thatched with bamboo and cane, 
are as perfectly Japanese as if a European had never touched the coast. 

It may be conceived that it is difficult for the transient traveller, 
who always sojourns among his countrymen, and speaks with the 
natives only through an interpreter, to study Japan or its people. 
The Japanese, however they may have been heretofore, are not now 
jealous or suspicious. They labor cheerfully on the wharves, serve 
faithfully in foreign families within the concessions, and manufac- 
ture, in their own districts, articles of furniture and fancy goods for 
foreign markets. They are polite, sagacious, and skilful traders. 

* The Prime-Minister informs Mr. Seward that the census recently taken gave thirty- 
five (35) millions, but that it was erroneous. He estimates the population at fifty millions. 



NATIVE COSTUMES. 



39 



September 27th. — The representations of native costumes on the 
Japanese porcelain and lacquer-work, which are found on our tables 
and in our parlors at home, are not less accurate than spirited. 
The coarse, black hair is a chief object of pride and care. The 




JAPANESE BABBEES. 



barber with his scissors, combs, razors, and pomatum, is seen at all 
hours of the day in the most public places. The women brush the 



40 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



hair away from the temples a la Pompadour, and gather it up under 
a small smooth puff at the back of the head with gilt and vermilion 
pins. The hair of the men is shorn entirely off the crown, leaving 
enough at the sides and back to be drawn upward and fastened 
in a graceless and meaningless knot. The effect is simply shock- 
ing. The barber-work being performed only three times a week, 
care is taken to prevent disarrangement in the intervals. They 
use, instead of a pillow, a wooden block adjusted to the shape of the 
neck. The pomatum so lavishly applied is extracted from an herb, 
which, growing in the eaves of the houses, makes a pretty green 
fringe for the brown thatched roofs. They say that one of the em- 
perors, for sumptuary reasons, forbade the cultivation of this plant 
in the fields. Thus the people, while evading the law, beautify 
their dwellings. 

Here, as in Alaska and in ancient Mexico, civil economy re- 




»** mmw^i 



JAPANESE GIRLS. 



quires that the married and unmarried women shall wear distin- 
guishing badges. The girl, with full hair tastefully arranged, with 
white teeth, and with the free use of cosmetics, and a scrupulously 
modest costume, is attractive ; when married, her eyebrows are 
immediately shaven off, her teeth are stained jet-black, the orna- 
ments are removed from her hair, and she becomes repulsive. 



JAPANESE CEMETEEIES. 



41 



Wherever a city of the living is, there is also a greater city of 
the dead. The Japanese bury on the hill-sides. Though cremation 







--■"-':".- 





JAPANESE CEMETERY. 



is sometimes practised, the body is more generally interred in a 
sitting posture, cramped within a plain, white, square box, borne to 
the grave on men's shoulders. All who attend, wear white mourn- 
ing-badges. "Women do not appear in the processions. Burial is 
without pomp and pageantry. A black or gray stone obelisk is 
raised over the grave. 

All the cemeteries are crowded, but doubtless this is due to the 
economy of land required by so dense a population. They are, 
however, always shaded and green. 



42 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Septeiriber 28th. — We made an excursion, by boat, to-day, on 
the bay of Yeddo, to Kanagawa, and its precincts. The Tokaido, 
the high-road which traverses the island of Niphon, passes through 
the town. A crowd of both sexes and all ages gathered and stared 
at our landing. The architecture of Japanese towns and villages 
is monotonous. The buildings, public and private, are small and 
huddled together. It was a pleasing surprise to find the railroad 
to Yeddo in process of construction. It is undertaken by a native 
company, using only Japanese capital, credit, and labor. By-the- 
way, the projectors are becoming timid in prosecuting the work, 
under an apprehension that, when it shall be completed, foreigners 
will base extortionate claims on any accidental injuries they may 
suffer. 

Ascending a high hill, just beyond the town of Kanagawa, we 
enjoyed our first interior view of Japanese rural scenery. Thence- 
forward we had a path only five or six feet wide, which winds 
across the plains and around the hill-sides, not on any principle of 
road-making, but simply for the convenient use of the soil. The 
hill-tops are covered with majestic cypresses and yew-trees, inter- 
mingled with the chestnut, holly, pine, persimmon, and camphor. 
At their bases are thick groves of the slender bamboo, which, be- 
sides being highly ornamental, is the most variously useful of all 
the woods in the East. 

The althea, the lily, the japonica, the arbor-vitse, the wisteria, 
the passion-flower, and many other shrubs and creepers, which re- 
quire so much care and labor in our gardens and greenhouses, are 
luxuriant here. There is no waste, either by rock, marsh, or jun- 
gle ; every hill is terraced, every acre irrigated, every square foot 
of land covered by some tree, cereal, or esculent. Instead of farms, 
there are small plots, and each is tilled with cotton, flax, wheat, 
barley, sugar, beets, peppers, sweet-potatoes, cabbages, turnips, and 
other vegetables, by a single family, with care equal to that which 
is bestowed on our flower-beds. ]STo allowance is made for even 
accidental waste of the crop. The individual wheat-stalk which is 
bent down by the storm is restored and supported. Each head of 
rice, each particular boll of cotton, is kept in its place until care- 




A JAPANESE GARDEN. 



MONKS AND MONASTEKIES. 43 

fully removed by the husbandman's hand. There is no loss of 
time in gathering the crops into garners ; as fast as the product 
ripens, it is harvested and immediately prepared for the market. 
Despotism, though often cruel, is not always blind. A law of the 
empire obliges every one who fells a tree to plant another. In 
the midst of this rich and beautiful landscape, within an enclosure 
of two hundred acres, stands a Buddhist temple, with an adjoining 
monastery, surrounded by groves such as Downing might have 
designed. We came upon the base of the temple by successive 
nights of steps, each reaching from a platform below to a more con- 
tracted one above. The edifices are constructed of wood, which is 
generally used in Japan, for greater security against earthquakes. 

The temple has an overhanging roof and portico, which are 
unique and graceful. The columns, architraves and cornices are 
elaborately, though grotesquely carved. The bonzes received and 
conducted us through the sacred edifices with ceremonious polite- 
ness, requiring us to leave our boots at the door, not as a re- 
ligious observance, but as a regulation of domestic economy. These 
priests are vowed to celibacy and temperance, and in their ton- 
sure and habit they resemble Carmelite friars, except that their 
spotless white raiment is not of wool, but of soft silk. The monas- 
tery is divided into numerous apartments by sliding paper doors, 
but all these were thrown open to us. A fine, clean bamboo mat, 
two inches thick, is spread on every floor, and serves for " bed and 
board." There is no other furniture. While we were enjoying 
our collation in one apartment, the bonzes were taking tea and 
smoking in the next one. Each bonze, before lifting his teacup or 
bringing his pipe to his lips, brought his head half a dozen times 
to the floor by way of compliment to his several companions. We 
inferred that some of the party were pilgrims, enjoying the hospitali- 
ties of the house. The temple is a square enclosure, with an open 
corridor on every side. Nearly the whole floor is covered with a 
dais, in the centre of which is a large altar, with a. smaller one on 
either side. Over each a carved image — the middle one, Buddha ; 
on his right, the mythological mikado, on the left an apostle or 
lawgiver. !No space is allowed for worshippers. They prostrate 



44 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



themselves at the porch, and are content with throwing small coins 
into the treasury just within the door. A cemetery near the tem- 
ple is crowded w T ith monuments of pilgrim princes and saints. 
Take away from this temple its pagan devices and emblems, and 
the whole place would seem to be pervaded with the very spirit of 
religious devotion. It combines seclusion, repose, and silence with 
solemnity. The good monks dismissed us with many blessings, 
after having obtained Mr. Seward's leave to visit him at Yokohama. 
On our return, we found the bay highly agitated. Discarding the 
life-boats of the Monocacy, we crossed in a native craft, rowed by 
a vigilant and active though excited and vehement crew. 

September 30th. — A second excursion, this time overland to 
Kanagawa, southward on the Tokaido. A hundred years ago, no 
part of the United States, perhaps few countries in Europe, afforded 
a road equal to this in firmness and smoothness. At intervals, hot 




TEA-HOtTSE ON THE TOKAIDO. 



tea in tiny cups, with cakes and sugar-plums, was brought out to us 
by pretty girls,' artistes in dance and song. The beverage might not 
be declined, though we were not allowed to pay for it. In many 
places we found circular benches arranged under trees five hundred 



GROUP ON THE TOKAIDO. 



45 



years old. This frequent provision for rest and refreshment is due 
to the circumstance that travel in Japan is principally performed by 
pedestrians, with the occasional use of chairs. Daimios have always 
used horses, and recently foreigners have introduced vehicles. 



•rt,* 







GEOUP ON THE TOKAIDO. 



The Japanese are a busy as well as a frugal people. Thickly- 
clustering houses, booths, and work-shops nearly close the road 
on either side, making it difficult to distinguish where a rural 

Occasionally a vacant space opens a beau- 



district begins or ends 



46 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



tiful vista. At the end of twenty miles we sent our carriages back 
to Yokohama, and proceeded in chairs by a narrow path over a 
lofty hill, and then came down on the ocean-beach. The feet of 
our coolie bearers sank deep in the sand, but we enjoyed the re- 
freshing spray which dashed in our faces. Then leaving the shore, 
and following a rugged mountain-path, we came upon a high plain, 
where once stood the renowned ecclesiastical capital, Kamakura. 
Practically speaking, Japan has no ruins. An extensive and hand- 




TEMPLE AT KAMAKURA. 



some temple, which still maintains its prestige, is the only monu- 
ment of the ancient city. A few miles beyond this temple, we left 
our chairs, and, diverging from the road, we confronted a high 
wooden arch, fantastically painted with bright green, blue and yel- 
low colors. On either side of the arch is a carved bronze demon, 
fifteen feet high, protected by an iron railing. These figures, de- 
signed to be terrific, are simply hideous. They are plastered over 
with moistened paper pellets, which have been cast on them by pass- 
ing pilgrims. The adhesion of the pellet is taken as an assurance 



THE GREAT STATUE OF BUDDHA. 



47 



that the monster is appeased, and consents to the visit of a votary. 
Trusting that the missiles which our bearers had thrown upon 
the demons had propitiated them in our favor, we boldly en- 
tered the gate. Ascending a solid flight of steps, we reached a 
paved court, three sides of which are graced with monumental 
shrines of stone and bronze. On a pedestal six feet high, in the 
centre of the square, is the gigantic statue of Buddha (famous as 
the Daibutz), sitting with crossed legs, on a lotus-flower. Though 
description by measurement is not poetical, we must use it to con- 
vey an idea of this colossal idol. It is fifty feet high, a hundred 




feet in circumference at the base, and the head is nine feet long ; 
the hands are brought together in front, with thumbs joined ; the 
head is covered with metallic snails, which are supposed to protect 
the god from the sun. Some travellers find in the face an expres- 



48 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



sion of sublime contemplation ; to us it seems dull and meaning- 
less. The statue being made of bronze plates, is hollow; the 
interior is shaped and fitted as a temple. We are inclined to be- 
lieve that the Japanese have lost their early reverence for the 
Daibutz ; we find the walls covered with the autographs of pilgrims 
and travellers. The bonzes invited us to register our own names, 
and they offer to sell the god to any purchaser for the price of old 
copper. 




JAPANESE BONZES. 



CHAPTER II. 

VISIT TO YEDDO.— INTERVIEW WITH THE MIKADO. 

Interview with the Japanese Prime-Minister. — Tremendous Storm. — Some Points of 
History.- — The Mikado and the Tycoon. — Japanese Foreign Office. — Minister Sawa. 
—The Question of Saghalien.— The Tombs of the Tycoons.— A Speck of War.— The 
Delmonico of Yeddo. — Sketches of Yeddo. — The Interview with the Mikado. 

On hoard the Monocacy, Bay of Yeddo, October 1st. — On Mr. 
Seward's arrival at Yokohama, the Japanese Government at Yeddo 
invited him to a banquet in the palace of the Hamagoten. The 
Japanese ministry, with other official persons, in all six hundred, 
were to be present, and the prime-minister was to preside. Mr. 
Seward excused himself on the ground that the condition of his 
health and his habits oblige him to forego large assemblies. He 
wrote, at the same time, that he intended visiting the capital in a 
private manner, and that it would afford him pleasure if allowed to 
pay his respects to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This morn- 
ing, we set out on the excursion thus proposed, in the Monocacy, 
accompanied by Mr. De Long ; we arrived at the anchorage before 
Yeddo, at five o'clock, expecting to land immediately, under the 
ship's salute. 

Since our arrival at Yokohama the weather has been intensely 
hot, and everybody has been predicting some fearful convulsion of 
earthquake or tempest. A wind with heavy rain gave us a rough 
voyage ; but the sea has now calmed, though the rain continues. 
Mr. Seward, protesting against delay, asked for boats when the 
anchor dropped. The ladies shrank from exposure; even the 



50 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

United States minister became demoralized, and Mr. Seward was 
overruled ; so here we are, lying five miles from Yeddo, under the 
guns of a long line of Japanese forts, built on shoals, midway be- 
tween our anchorage and the city. The naval officers are to give 
up their quarters to us for the night, in expectation of a calm sea 
and cloudless sky to-morrow ; an expectation which Mr. Seward 
desires it to be distinctly understood he does not share. In the 
mean time they are entertaining us with music and conversation. 

Yeddo, October 2d. — Mr. Seward was right. "We retired at 
eleven o'clock, to the very narrow " regulation berths," imprisoning 
ourselves with close mosquito-nets, in the smallest of state-rooms, 
looking through the open ports at a very silvery moon, bright stars, 
and a smooth sea, the ship drawing nine feet on an anchorage of 

three fathoms. Between us and the forts, the harbor was covered 

1 with vessels, including a large number of Japanese steamers and 
(/) other boats, as well as Chinese junks. Some of these lay quite near 

to us. There was no sleep. At four o'clock in the morning, a phos- 
phorescent wave, pouring through the open ports, deluged our 
state-rooms. At this juncture, the order came down the hatch- 
way, "Close the ports " The steward informed us that there was 
" something of a high sea." Wrapping ourselves in our now 
thoroughly-wetted garments, we rushed into the dark cabin, and 
there overheard low conversation on the deck, which expressed 
apprehension of a fearful storm. 

We were on deck at break of day. The sky wore a copper hue ; 
the air grew intensely hot ; the barometer fell from 30° 50' to 28° ; 
a violent wind seemed to come from all quarters, and, in the midst 
of a deluge of rain, blew the sea from underneath the ship, causing 
her continually to bound and rebound on the sandy bottom. It 
was the typhoon ! Nevertheless, we remained on deck, lashed fast 
in our seats, preferring the open tempest there to the close and 
nauseating cabin. The captain was self-collected ; he ordered the 
top-masts down, and every spar well secured. Three anchors, the 
ship's entire ground-tackle, were thrown out ; every vessel, and 
every other object on sea and land, now disappeared from our view. 



STORM IN THE BAY. 51 

With confused fears that some ship might be driving against us, or 
that we might be dragging toward a lee-shore, we put our engines 
in motion, to keep the Monocacy up to her anchors. The more 
juvenile officers, of whom, of course there were many, enlivened the 
dark and dreary hours by whispered accounts of all the ships which 
had been wrecked, or escaped wreck, in all the typhoons, and all 
the tidal waves, and all the earthquakes that have raged in Asiatic 
waters, or in any other seas, within the memory of man. 

% At twelve o'clock, we were driven from the deck by alarms that 
the guns were breaking loose from their fastenings, that the bul- 
warks and stanchions were giving way, and the bending masts and 
spars would crush us. We took refuge once more in the cabin, 
uncertain whether the ship was parting her anchors, or breaking 
to pieces in her berth. All the hatchways being closed, exclud- 
ing air except through a convoluted funnel, a lethargy came over 
us, which made some helpless, and nearly all hopeless. About two 
o'clock, an officer, anxiously and carefully consulting the glass, said 
in a low voice, "It is rising," and, after a few seconds more, he ex- 
claimed, " It is the end ! " And so it was. 

In half an hour we were on deck again. The sky was bright, 
and the sea, though yet rolling, had lost its violence. But the 
vessels which had been moored in such dangerous proximity were 
no longer there. The lee-shore was so near that we wondered at 
our presumption in having anchored there. At five o'clock, a full 
boat's crew manned a prize-gig, and with bright and merry oars 
rowed us around the forts to the wharf of the consulate at Teddo. 
On the way we passed a crowded steamer, broken directly in the 
middle, and hanging across the rampart of the upper fort ; while a 
dozen vessels were seen half out of water in the shallow and treach- 
erous bay. When we saw the broken walls, overturned trees and 
fallen buildings on the shore, we were convinced that our anchorage 
in the bay was the safer refuge, notwithstanding all its terrors. 
The Monocacy had neither parted a rope nor started a nail, while 
the consulate had been beaten and shattered on all sides and in 
every part. 

Sunset came on ; while there was no rainbow, all the prismatic 



52 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

colors and hues were painted on the broken and rolling clouds, as 
brilliantly and as distinctly as they are ever seen in the " arch of 
promise " itself. 

With what grateful emotions did we reflect that the tempest 
which so often breaks and destroys the stanchest of ships in the 
Eastern sens, had been in this instance withheld, not only until we 
had crossed the great ocean, but even until we had found an anchor- 
age from which we had beheld the terrific phenomenon without 
disaster ! 

Monday, October 3d. — The Monocacy having done her best to 
rouse the sleepers of the capital by a salute to Mr. Seward, returned 
down the bay to Yokohama. Thanks to her brave officers and no- 
ble crew, with earnest wishes for their health and promotion. 

The damages of the consulate have been repaired sufficiently 
for our comfortable accommodation. We are guests of the minister 
and the consul. At an early hour an officer came from the Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, to learn when Mr. Seward would make his 
promised visit. He appointed ten o'clock, to-morrow. 

Before we go to the foreign office, it may be well to recall 
some points of history, in order to make our observations on Yeddo 
intelligible. 

The people of Japan, whether indigenous here or derived from 
Siberia, assumed political organization, according to their own 
records, about twenty-four hundred years ago, in the two islands 
of Niphon and Kiusiu. They were governed by an emperor, who, 
being descended from the gods, was divine and absolute on earth, 
and when he died was worshipped. Not only was his person too 
sacred to be looked upon by a stranger, but even the sun must not 
shine on his head. It was sacrilegious to touch the dishes from 
which he ate. At his death, his twelve wives and all their attend- 
ants committed hari-hari. These attributes are still popularly con- 
ceded to him. As vicegerent of Heaven, he wears the title of 
Tenno ; as sovereign in temporal affairs, he is the Mikado or 
Emperor. 

Miako, some thirty miles inland, was his ancient capital, and 



THE TYCOON AND MIKADO. 53 

Osaka its seaport. Tlie Emperor by divine right owned the lands 
in the empire, and in time graciously divided them into provinces ; 
retaining five or more of these for himself, he parcelled out the 
others among great lords or princes, called daimios. In the thir- 
teenth century, a rebellion arose in the empire, and the Mikado, 
remaining at Miako, committed the defence of the state to the 
richest and strongest one of these daimios, who wore the title of 
" Tycoon." This military commander, after a short time, absorbed 
the temporal sovereignty and reigned absolutely. Yeddo thus be- 
came a third capital of the empire. 

The Tycoon, nevertheless, paid homage to the Mikado, who re- 
tained his titular rank, and unquestioned spiritual authority and 
preeminence. Besides the proper revenues of his own five prov- 
inces, the Mikado enjoyed, for the support of his dignity, an annual 
allowance made by the Tycoon, out of the general revenues of the 
empire. As he cultivated religion and such science as the age 
allowed, Miako became the centre of intelligence and learning. It 
still retains this distinction. Osaka being an alternate residence of 
the Mikado, it partook of the sanctity of the capital. 

By degrees the Mikado, free from all responsibility for admin- 
istration, grew in the affections of the people, while the Tycoon, 
exercising his power despotically, and held responsible for all na- 
tional disasters and misfortunes, became an object of public jealousy 
and hatred. It was at this juncture that the United States, through 
Commodore Perry, and the European powers afterward, made their 
treaties with the Tycoon, in ignorance of any pretensions on the 
part of the Mikado to temporal power. It was the Tycoon who 
sent two successive embassies to the United States, one in 1860 and 
the other in 1868. In 1865, the ministers of the Western powers, 
residing at Yeddo, wrote alarming accounts of popular discontents 
with the Tycoon's administration, and of frantic appeals made to 
the Mikado to resume the sovereign power, annul the treaties, and 
expel foreigners from the empire. For this object, a party was 
formed by powerful daimios and fanatical ecclesiastics. 

While matters were in this situation, a young daimio, son of 
the powerful Prince Satsuma, was improving an academic vacation 



54 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

in England, to visit tlie United States. He went to Mr. Seward, 
in tlie Department of State. He inquired of the prince to which 
of the local parties in Japan he belonged. To Mr. Seward's sur- 
prise, he answered, "to the Mikado's." "What," said Mr. Seward, 
" is the cause of the civil war, and what question does it involve? " 
He replied : " The Tycoon, who has no title to the throne, but is only 
a general in the imperial service, some time ago usurped the gov- 
ernment, and claims to transmit it to his heirs. This usurpation is 
intolerable." " How long," said Mr. Seward, " since this usurpa- 
tion was committed % " " Oh, it is very recent — it is only six hun- 
dred years since it occurred." 

The revolution was successful, the dynasty of the Tycoon was 
abolished, and the heaven-descended Mikado in the year 1868, 
leaving his spiritual seat at Miako, repaired to Yeddo, and fully 
resumed the throne of his ancestors. He promptly confirmed 
the treaties, and of course was duly recognized by the Western 
powers. 

October kth. — At nine this morning a cavalry-escort was placed 
at Mr. Seward's command. It is attentive and orderly, although, 
according to our Western ideas, not particularly well mounted or 
disciplined. 

After a diligent exploration of the two or three European livery- 
stables in the city, the consul succeeded in procuring three well- 
worn English carriages, drawn by native ponies, like those of our 
escort. Taking no hesd of the suggestion that women are forbidden 
in Japanese society, and unknown at court, Mr. Seward proceeded 
to the foreign office with the ladies, the minister, Mr. Randall 
and the consul. (Mr. George F. Seward and Mrs. Seward have 
gone forward to Shanghai.) As we drove through the streets, we 
found them filled with gayly-dressed and merry crowds, and thus 
learned that Mr. Seward's appointment had fallen on one of the 
numerous national holidays. 

The foreign office is in the centre of a paved court, which is 
enclosed by a stone-wall twelve feet high. The gates were wide 
open ; Mr. Seward and his friends were received by hundreds of 



JAPANESE PRIME-MINISTER. 



55 



official persons, with profound demonstrations of homage. The 
inner building is of wood, one story high, surrounded by a broad 
corridor. The corridor itself is separated from the court by sliding 
sash-doors, with oiled-paper and silk instead of glass. On the inner 
side the corridor opens into a succession of chambers constructed 
like those of the monastery we have before described ; the apart- 
ments small, the ceilings low and the partitions movable panels. 
The floors are- covered with matting. 

We were conducted through the corridor to a room a little 
larger than the others, perhaps eighteen feet square. Some furni- 
ture had been extemporized here. There was a European centre- 



f _^,mB Ai „ 1 .:, Oil.' 




JAPANESE OFFICER OF STATE. 



56 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

table covered with an ornamental cloth, a small Brussels rug spread 
under the table, and upon it a lacquered box filled with cheroots, 
and a rich bronze brazier containing live charcoal. We sat on 
stools in the order indicated by the Japanese usher, Mr. Sew- 
ard being next the seat reserved for the host. Presently, with 
great rustling of silks, Sawa, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, entered. 
He bowed many times very low. He then gave his hand to Mr. 
Seward in the American fashion, and afterward to the. other visitors, 
as they were formally presented, manifesting, however, some slight 
embarrassment in exchanging this form of courtesy with the ladies. 
Well he might, for " be it known unto all to whom these presents 
shall come" that they are the only women, of whatever nation or 
race, who, within the memory of man, have been received in an 
official circle in Japan. The Japanese Government is not behind 
the ancient court of Haroun-al-Kaschid, in the opinion that " women 
have little sense and no religion." The porch of a temple in the 
interior has this inscription : " Neither horses, cattle, nor women, 
admitted here." 

Sawa is live feet ten, and stout. He has the features of the 
Mongolian, with its complexion a little relieved, clear, mild eyes, 
and an expression at once intelligent and amiable ; his hands and 
feet very small and delicate, his hair gathered up from all sides, 
elaborately oiled, and brushed and fastened in a knot. On the top 
of his head rested a curiously-carved jet-black lacquered cap, which 
by its shape reminded us of a toy-boat. This ornament was fast- 
ened under the chin and behind the head, by heavy purple silken 
cords with tassels large enough for modest window-curtains. His 
dress was double — an under-tunic and trousers of dark silk reps ; 
the upper garments, of the same cut, though more full and flowing, 
were of gold and white brocade. He wore spotless white shoes 
and stockings — the shoe and stocking of each foot being of one 
piece ; at his side a single sword, highly wrought, with hilt and 
scabbard of ivory and gold. Some show of awkwardness gave us 
an impression that he found his magnificent toilet, on this occasion, 
inconvenient and uncomfortable. Looking at Mr. Seward, Sawa, 
in a very low voice, pronounced, in the Japanese language, what 



THE JAPANESE INTERPRETER. 



5T 



sounded like not one speech, but a succession of distinct sen- 
tences. The interpreter Ishtabashi, kneeling at his side, at the 
close of each sentence signified his understanding of it by the 
aspirate " Hi ! hi ! hi ! " Sawa having finished, Ishtabashi gathered 




JAPANESE INTERPRETER, IN COURT DRESS. 



up the sense of these fragmentary speeches, and rendered the whole 
into English, as follows : 

"Mr. Seward, all the ministers of Japan proposed to receive 
you on your arrival at Yeddo, at such a time as you would appoint. 
But this is a holiday in our country. It is our custom that at this 
hour, on every holiday, all the ministers repair to the castle, 
and pay their homages to his Majesty the Tenno. The other 
ministers have gone there for that purpose. I have obtained from. 



58 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

his Majesty the indulgence to remain here, and receive you in 
behalf of my associates." 

Mr. Seward thanked the minister, and expressed regret that he 
had unwittingly chosen so unsuitable a day for his visit. 

Sawa resumed : " I have heard of you much, and I know you 
by character. I see your face now for the first time, and I am 
happy to see it." 

Mr. Seward answered, that it afforded him great pleasure to see 
Japan, and become acquainted with its government. 

The Minister: "I am happy that you have arrived safely after 
so long a journey. I see that you are very old and very hand- 
some. Yon show high resolution in making so great a voyage. 
All of us will be glad to avail ourselves of your large experience as 
a statesman." 

We are not a practical reporter, and therefore cannot detail the 
long and interesting conversation which followed. It was highly 
deferential on both sides. Some parts of it showed that the pro- 
fession of politics is the same in Japan as in other countries. Sawa 
was asking Mr. Seward's good offices to obtain a mediation by the 
United States Government, to effect an adjustment with Russia of 
the boundary-question which involves the title to the island of 
Saghalien. Mr. Seward, hardly willing to assume so grave a 
responsibility, tried to divert Sawa's attention from it, saying that 
the United States and Russia were once near neighbors on the 
other side of the Pacific Ocean, and that a dispute arose between 
them concerning the right of American seamen to take fish in 
Russian waters. The controversy, just at the moment when it was 
becoming serious, was happily brought to an end by the United 
States purchasing the entire Russian possessions on the American 
Continent. "What would you think," he added, playfully, "of a 
suggestion that Japan shall, in the same way, purchase Saghalien ? " 

The minister hesitated, cast his eyes on the floor, and medi- 
tated ; then, looking up with a smile of conscious satisfaction, he 
answered : " All our histories agree that the entire island of Sagha- 
lien belongs to Japan now. We could not buy from Russia terri- 
tory which we own ourselves ! " 



THE TOMBS OF THE TYCOONS. 59 

" That is so," replied Mr. Seward, " and, if the people of Japan 
are like the people of the United States, yon will very soon find 
out that yon can no more sell yonr own territory to others than 
yon can buy it from them." 

During the conversation, tea and cigars, and afterward cham- 
pagne and cakes, were served by attendants who crouched on the 
floor whenever they received or executed a command. After an 
hour and a half passed, Sawa mentioned the places of special inter- 
est in Yeddo which he thought Mr. Seward ought to see, and ex- 
plained the arrangements which had been made for that purpose ; 
then, stipulating a private interview with Mr. De Long for the 
afternoon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs rose and took a graceful 
leave by bowing and shaking hands cordially with the whole party. 

Yeddo is a singular combination of compactly-built and densely- 
inhabited districts, with intervening gardens and groves, appropri- 
ated to civil and religious uses. "When in one of those populous 
districts, it is difficult to conceive that the whole vast city is not 
built in the same way ; and when in one of the deeply-shaded parks, 
it is impossible to realize that you are in the heart of a great city. 

As Sawa had suggested, we proceeded first to Sheba, the spa- 
cious grounds which contain the colossal tombs of the Tycoons who ' 
ruled in Japan so many centuries. Some of the tombs are of 
granite, others of bronze. They surpass, not only in costliness, 
but in impressive effect, any imperial or royal modern cemetery 
in the West. The sarcophagus, the obelisk, and the shaft, forms 
familiar in Western monumental architecture, equally prevail here. 
The monuments bear no epitaphs, but each is surrounded with 
many lantern-bearing votive shrines, covered with inscriptions 
commemorative of the virtues ' and achievements of the dead, and 
expressing the affection and gratitude of the princes by whom the 
tributary structures were erected. The domain is planted with 
great taste. Each particular tree and shrub has been formed and 
trained into a shape suggestive of religious sentiment. 

By the side of the cemetery stands the Temple of Sheba. What 
with hideous devices of the great red dragon of Japan, with his 
forked wings, flaming mane, and powerful claws, the monstrous 



•-• 



60 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 




TOMBS OF TIIE TYCOONS. 



transformations of Buddha into lions rampant and roaring, pea- 
cocks proud and strutting, and sagacious storks stalking and 
prophesying,' the interior of the temple is a weird combination 
of the mythic and the terrific. 

Though we have experienced neither menace nor insult, our 
guard is nevertheless indispensable to protect us against intrusive 
curiosity. The crowds gather around, and follow us wherever we 
alight and wherever we go. Perhaps the escort might be needed 
in case of sudden excitement or tumult, such as is liable to happen 
in every great city. 

That was not only, a seasonable but a pretty and pleasant break- 
fast which Sir Harry and Lady Parkes gave us at the British lega- 
tion. It did not need the after divertissement of native legerdemain. 
The zeal and efficiency of Sir Harry Parkes, as minister, are well 
known. Lady Parkes is not less distinguished for the spirited man- 
ner in which she sustains him in his diplomatic studies and labors. 

We left the British legation in compact procession, as we had 
entered it, Mr. Seward and Mr. De Long leading in a pony-carriage, 



BRITISH LEGATION AT YEDDO. 61 

Mr. De Long driving. Three other carriages followed, attended by 
the consul, and the whole surrounded by the escort. For a time the 
carriages in the rear had the forward one in full view, while its occu- 
pants, frequently looting back, exchanged greetings. Mr. Seward 
and Mr. De Long at length reached the high stone bridge, built 




BKITISU LEGATION, YEDDO. 



across one of the canals, and famous in Japanese history as the 
Mppon-Bas. There they became aware that the other carriages 
had fallen out of sight. The street which intervened was filled 
with holiday crowds, drawing huge, painted idols, mounted on low 



62 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

trucks. These crowds were rapidly moving in the direction of the 
missing carriages. The guards who surrounded the forward car- 
riage gesticulated, in a manner betokening alarm. Mi\ De Long, a 
Western gentleman, becoming excited, said to Mr. Seward, " There 
is a fight ; the ladies are attacked ! " "With this exclamation, he 
sprang from the carriage and rushed back at the top of his speed, 
his long whip in his left hand and a Colt's revolver in his right, 
determined to effect a rescue. Mr. Seward remained sitting in the 
little pony-carriage on the Nippon-Bas, attracting a constantly in- 
creasing native crowd. Mr. De Long, scattering the natives right 
and left, found the carriages in the clear, open street, a hundred 
rods distant from the bridge and vacant, while, upon the matted 
floor of a silk-merchant's "go-down," he found the ladies with the 
consul, sipping tea, a ceremony always introductory here to the 
cheapening of Japanese crapes and gauzes. Without saying a word, 
the minister pocketed his revolver, and, lowering his whip in the 
most pacific manner, walked quickly back to Mr. Seward, whom he 
found safe on the bridge. Even at this hour of writing, it remains 
uncertain what was the sentiment which overpowered Mr. De Long 
at this discovery, whether it was one of satisfaction at finding his 
protegees in safety, or of mortification at having so impulsively 
yielded to groundless alarm. Neither the advance-guard, nor the 
main body of the procession, has been able to discover what was 
the occasion of the Japanese excitement which produced so much 
trouble. 

October 5th. — A busy day, but less eventful. We have visited 
the Hamagoten and its palace, where Mr. Seward was to have been 
feasted. The palace, built and ornamented in Japanese style, is 
luxuriously furnished in the European. One of the saloons is ap- 
propriately called the Cool -room, its walls and ceilings being deco- 
rated exclusively with huge pictured fans, in many different posi- 
tions, and so well executed that you might fancy that you feel the 
air stirred by their motion. The grounds are as extensive as those 
of Central Park in New York, and not less elaborately embellished. 
There are quaint bamboo summer-houses, with pretty scroll roofs, 



THE JAPANESE PELMONICO'S. 63 

covered with hundreds of creepers, known to us only in our green- 
houses, standing in the midst of lakes well stocked with gold-fish. 
There are groves of mulberries, chestnuts, persimmons, and oranges. 
Stately shade-trees, cut and twisted into the shapes of animals, 
castles, and ships, crown hundreds of high knolls which overlook 
the smooth bay of Yedclo. 

From the Hamagoten, we drove to old Osakasa, where we 
wonderingly examined a temple which surpasses all the others we 
have seen. Superstition, though abating in Japan, is nevertheless 
far from being extinct. They show at Sheba, in the court of the 
temple, a bowlder, in the top of which a deep, smooth, circular basin 
has been made, which is filled with water, and kept carefully cov- 
ered with a stone lid. It is an accepted belief that this water rises 
and falls with the ocean-tide. At Osakasa we were required to 
look with reverence upon two native ponies (one cream-colored, 
the other brown), both nicely trimmed and groomed, and superbly 
caparisoned, occupying apartments neat as a parlor. They remain 
in perpetual readiness for the equestrian exercises of the gods. The 
beasts are maintained by pious contributions of pilgrims. Ecclesias- 
tics in Japan, as sometimes they do elsewhere, resort to questionable 
expedients for raising money. The highly-ornamented grounds of 
Osakasa are rented for tea-houses, theatrical exhibitions, jugglers' 
entertainments, and other popular amusements. 

A dinner was ordered for us at a tea-house— the " Delmonico's " 
of Yeddo. Leaving our carriages with the escort in the streets, 
and our boots at the door, we were ushered up a very steep, but 
highly-polished wooden staircase into a chamber, or rather a 
dozen chambers divided by sliding-doors. Here we sat down on 
the clean matted floor. A lacquered table was set before each 
person. It was eight or ten inches high, and large enough for two 
small covers. Tea in little cups without saucers was served, clear, 
and piping hot. After the tea, saki, a liquor distilled from rice, 
fiery and distasteful, was poured from a porcelain vase into such 
small, shallow, red, lacquered vessels as we sometimes mistake for 
tea-saucers. Our hostess, a middle-aged matron, was assisted by 
eleven pretty girls, their ages varying from twelve to sixteen. 



64 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



These attendants, by the elegance of their costume and abundance 
of white cosmetics, had enhanced their beauty to the degree that, 
in Oriental speech, it would be said that " every one of them was a 
temptation to the servants of God." One of them went down on 
her knees beside each guest, and remained there until it was time 
to bring on, with the tiniest of delicate hands, a new course. Their 
actions were graceful and modest, their voices bird-like. They 
manifested childish delight at every compliment we gave them, and 
their pleasure seemed to rise to ecstasy when permitted to examine 
our watches, fans, parasols and other articles of dress or ornament. 








JAPANESE MUSICIAN. 



A SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE. 65 

The dinner, however, was rather a self-denying ordinance. 
There was a vegetable soup flavored with soy, raw fish in thin 
slices with horse-radish, petty bits of game, various preparations of 
rice, and many dishes whose composition was unascertainable. 
These courses were intermingled with sweetened fruits and confec- 
tionery. Sahi was offered with every course, and always with great 
ceremony. All the dishes had one common flavor, which we could 
not analyze. Even the sugar had this raw, indescribable taste. After 
the entertainment, the girls, sitting on the floor, each with a rude 
instrument, in form a compromise between the banjo and the guitar, 
played and sang, and at intervals rose and danced. Though the 
airs were not without melody and harmony, they were so crude 
and monotonous that the highest expert in the "heavenly art"' 
could find no musical meaning in them. The posturing and ges- 
ticulation were artistic, though the dancing was conducted on no 
rules of the ballet. Great skill was displayed in the dance, the 
long and heavy dresses of the performers always covering the feet, 
and most of the time even the hands. Night overtook us before 
we left this " haunt of delight," and the performers accompanied 
us from- the banqueting-floor to our carriages in the dark street. 
Their grateful gestures and speaking smiles were intelligible, though 
their soft and gentle words were not. 

We needed to drive with much care through the crowded 
streets, now dimly lighted with an occasional paper lantern. But 
our dragoons were men " dressed in brief authority ; " they dashed 
furiously forward, and, with shrieking shouts and screams, startling 
myriads of bats from the thatched roofs, they drove the people, 
returning from their daily occupations, or listening to theatrical 
amusements, into the open doors or alleys. 

October 6th. — The day began at Yeddo with an audience given 
by Mr. Seward, at the consulate. The visitors were Japanese who 
have acquired some knowledge of foreign nations. Mr. Seward 
inquired for the Tycoon's ambassadors, Ono Tomogoro and Mats- 
moto Judaiyu, with whom he had negotiated in Washington. But 

there has been a revolution. The Mikado, then onlv a nominal 

7 



66 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

sovereign, is now absolute at the castle. The Tycoon is a prisoner 
of state ; Ono Tomogoro is also a prisoner, nobody knows where, 
and Matsmoto Judaiyu is a fugitive — some say at Shanghai, others 
at San Francisco. It seems to surpass Japanese comprehension 
that a new administration of the Government of the United States 
has come in, and that Mr. Seward has gone out of place without 
losing his head or public consideration. 

While Mr. Seward was holding his audience, the ladies shopped. 
The Japanese artisans contrive to produce exquisite articles of 
taste and vertu from cheap materials, and with an infinitesimal 
proportion of the precious metals. Their modern porcelain is 
inferior to the Chinese, but they excel in ornamental lacquer-work 
and fans of all sorts. Their designs in bronze are exceedingly 
curious, but their execution inferior to that of Europeans. In 
painting they are unsurpassed in the imitation of all forms of animal 
life. With a keen sense of the ludicrous, they may yet come to be 
employed as caricaturists in our presidential elections ! 

There is no special manufacture at Yeddo. It is an emporium 
for the whole empire. We have found it impossible to ascertain 
the districts in which particular classes of articles are made. The 
shops are small and closely packed with wares. The indifference 
assumed by the merchants would be provoking, if it were not for 
their extreme- politeness. If the buyer means to obtain a fair bar- 
gain, he must affect equal reserve and indifference. The entire 
family look on, half a dozen men and three or four women busying 
themselves in every sale. Indeed, the house and the shop are one. 
Four feet square of matting in the centre of the shop is the common 
dining-room and bedroom. Must they not eat and sleep by turns \ 

The United States minister was recalled to Yokohama last 
night. Captain Bachelor put the reins of two fine American horses 
into our hands, to drive in a light New-England phaeton down the 
Tokaido to Yokohama. Mr. Eandall conveyed the other ladies in a 
carriage drawn by Mr. De Long's mottled native ponies. Each car- 
riage was attended by two hettos, quick-footed boys, whose service is 
to run like coach-dogs by the side of horse or carriage, warning 
everybody out of the way, and they are. ready to seize and hold 



ON THE ROAD TO YOKOHAMA. 67 

the horses at every stopping-place, or in any case of alarm. The 
road was literally crowded, and hilarity and merriment displayed 
themselves on all sides. The crowds were labyrinthian. The 
activity and songs of the bettos, and the ejaculations and impreca- 
tions of our mounted guard, with the clangor of their arms, made 
our rapid drive a very exciting one, while a bracing air with genial 
sunshine was exhilarating. But all pleasures have their draw- 
backs. Neither the bettos nor the dragoons were capable of under- 
standing our requests or remonstrances. They wanted rest at 
every tea-house, or, what was the same thing, they sought favor at 
the tea-houses by bringing us up at the doors. The guard dis- 
mounted, and, with the bettos, took the refreshments profusely of- 
fered them, while we, though declining any, were obliged to wait. 
When we had made twelve miles, half the distance to Yokohama, 
we brought up at a hostelry, with a stable. Our horses were taken 
out to be fed and groomed. From open windows in an upper 
chamber we saw in the court a huge brass caldron sunk in the 
ground over an oven. The horses were brought to it. Four 
grooms took possession of each horse, and rubbed him thoroughly 
from head to hoof with wisps of straw dripping with hot water, and 
afterward dried him with as much care as the human patient re- 
ceives when he comes out of a Turkish bath. We improved the 
time by a Japanese dinner, which, when we were completely sur- 
feited, we left unfinished, very much to the disappointment of the 
music-girls. Once more on the road, we indulged a faint hope 
of reaching Yokohama before midnight. We came, after three or 
four miles, to the bank of a river twenty rods wide. There was one 
rough flat-boat on the other side, worked by an endless chain. Wc 
awaited its tedious arrival and delivery of passengers multitudinous 
and various. Then our beasts were led separately into the boat 
and crossed. It returned to our shore, and, as in the riddle of the 
fox, goose and peck of corn, took the dragoons and the carriages. 
" Last came joy's ecstatic trial." We hurried on board, and, reach- 
ing the opposite bank, found the vehicles there, but not the horses. 
We were obliged to walk forward a quarter of a mile, to a place 
where the bettos and cavalry were taking tea and smoking, as if they 



68 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

had fasted the whole day. Then they went back and brought up 
the impedimenta. A brilliant, full-orbed moon expanded into 
majestic size every object that we passed, and lit up the waters of 
the bay as we approached Kanagawa. Mr. De Long's native ponies, 
after frequently giving out on the way, fell in climbing the sharp, 
high hill, and it taxed our own horsemanship to get over this dif- 
ficult part of the road. The other carriage was drawn over the 
hill by the bettos and dragoons, and. the ponies were then re- 
attached. Meantime bettos and dragoons lighted each his varie- 
gated paper lantern. They made the suburban streets of Yoko- 
hama resound with vociferous shouts, thus exciting the astonish- 
ment and perhaps the fears of this inoffensive people. "We arrived 
at Mr. Walsh's hospitable gate, much to the satisfaction of our 
friends within, who, owing to the lateness of the hour, had become 
apprehensive for our safety. 

Steamship New York, off the Coast of Japan, October 8th. — "We 
have embarked, without having had time on shore to record the 
latest and most striking incidents of our visit at Yokohama. Mr. 
Seward was not allowed to leave Japan without a marked dem- 
onstration from the government, as well as an expression of 
respect from the foreign residents. On our return from Yeddo, on 
the 6th, he received an invitation to an audience of the Mikado. 
This ceremony is usually distinguished by procrastinations and 
formalities even more tedious than in European courts. The time 
being shortened, however, in this case, the invitation was accepted. 
Yesterday morning, we were awakened from sleep, which was quite 
too short after our drive on the previous day, by an infinite 
clatter of mechanics, upholsterers, and decorators, who were engaged 
in constructing with canvas, all around Mr. Walsh's very large 
house, a broad suite of saloons, dancing-halls, waiting-rooms and 
supper-rooms. The whole was completed during the day, decorated 
with flags and tropical shrubbery, and flowers, and softly lighted by 
fanciful lanterns. The band of the German naval squadron played 
" Hail Columbia," and the ball was opened at ten o'clock. All 
the diplomatic and consular corps were present, as well as the naval 



INTEKVIEW WITH THE MIKADO. 69 

officers of the United States and other nations, and foreign resi- 
dents. Of course, not one Japanese of either sex was there, for, as 
we have before intimated, there is no social intermingling of the two 
populations. Caste and race are unrelenting antagonists to univer- 
sal civilization. This beautiful ball crowned most gracefully the 
generous hospitalities of which we were recipients during our so- 
journ with Mr. and Mrs. Walsh. 

At two o'clock yesterday morning, while the merry dance was 
yet going on, Captain Bachelor brought to the wharf, in front of 
Mr. Walsh's compound, then so highly illuminated, a little steam- 
yacht and received Mr. Seward on board, who, against all remon- 
strance, persisted in keeping his engagement, although in the midst 
of a driving wind and rain. He was accompanied by Mr. De Long, 
Mr. Shepherd, and Mr. Walsh, and at six o'clock, after ground- 
ing three or four times on the way, they were safely landed at 
Yecldo. At eight o'clock, Mr. Ishtabashi appeared in rich official 
Japanese costume, and, profoundly bowing, said, with measured 
words : " I am waiting for the honor of conducting Mr. Seward to 
the great castle, where he will be received by his Majesty the Tenno ; 
not in the customary official manner, but in a private audience, as 
an expression of personal respect and friendship. I am particularly 
commanded to make this explanation of the character of the pro- 
posed audience." 

At nine o'clock the party proceeded in two carriages, with 
an enlarged mounted escort. They were conducted, whether by 
design or not, through streets bordered by immense walled en- 
closures, which are the strongholds and barracks of the several 
daimios who, under the Tycoon's administration, were required to 
reside during alternate periods, with their armed retainers, at the 
capital. The discontinuance of this usage, since the restoration of 
the Mikado, is a singular illustration of the same advance toward 
a more popular system of government which was made by the 
kings of Europe when they reduced the feudal barons to subjection. 
The barracks vacated by the daimios' soldiers are now occupied by 
imperial battalions. The feudal soldiers of the Tycoon must have 
been a ferocious crew, if they were more savage than these rough 



70 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

and ill-looking guards of the Tenno. The citadel, called " The Great 
Castle," crowns an eminence in the centre of the city. It is a triple 
fortification, nine miles in circumference, consisting of three con- 
centric forts, each by itself complete, with rampart, inner embank- 
ment, ditch, bastion and glacis, parapet and double gates. The 
outer fort stands on a level with the plain, the next higher, and the 
central one higher still, overlooking the country and the sea. The 
walls of each are fifty feet high, built of granite blocks, more mas- 
sive than those of the Rip-Raps, off Old Point Comfort. The impe- 
rial palace is in the centre of the inner fort. It is a low structure, 
differing from the temples and monasteries which we have before 
described, not in material or style of architecture, but in the ar- 
rangement of its apartments. The area which surrounds it is 
tastefully planted and adorned with lawns, winding gravelled 
walks, small lakes, and what we would call summer-houses, and 
tenements for attendants and servants. The areas of the other two 
fortifications are similarly embellished. In any past stage of mili- 
tary science, the citadel must have been impregnable. We cannot 
learn its history. 

When Mr. Seward and his friends had reached the gates of the 
outer fort, they were received with a salute at each of the double 
portals, and were permitted to pass through in carriages to the 
gates of the second. They were received here with similar hon- 
ors, and passed to the gates of the third. Entering these with 
salutes as before, they were received by one of the eight Ministers 
of Foreign Affairs, who, having requested them to dismiss their 
carriages, conducted them, with much obeisance, across the lawns 
to a sheltered place, where they rested on lacquer stools. Here a 
second Minister of Foreign Affairs joined the party, and, making 
new compliments, led them to seats on the shore of a small lake. 
Here the minister informed Mr. Seward that Mr. Walsh, being an 
unofficial gentleman, could proceed no farther, and that the same 
rule excluded Freeman. They stopped. At this juncture Sawa, 
chief Minister of Foreign Affairs, met Mr. Seward, and conducted 
him to a summer-house more spacious than the others, which over- 
looks a larger and deeper lake. On the way thither, he obtained a 



INTERVIEW WITH THE MIKADO. 71 

view of a part of the imperial stud. A rail twelve or fifteen feet 
long is fixed three feet above the ground, on supports. Several 
iron-gray Japanese ponies, unattended by grooms, stood at this rail, 
in readiness for his Majesty's use at the close of the proposed audi- 
ence. When the party had arrived at the summer-house, the prime- 
minister, the Chief Minister of Finance and the heads of the other 
departments, were found waiting, and they were severally presented 
by Sawa to Mr. Seward. The whole party then sat down a't an 
oblong table, the prime-minister presiding, and Mr. Seward and the 
other visitors on his left hand, the Japanese ministers on his right. 
The prime-minister first, and after him each of his associates, ad- 
dressed Mr. Seward in words of courteous welcome, to which he 
briefly replied. A pleasant conversation now ensued, during which 
tea, cakes, confectionery, cigars and champagne, were successively 
brought in by attendants, who prostrated themselves on the ground 
at every offer of their service. The prime-minister then, in a very 
direct but most courteous way, said to Mr. Seward : " It is the 
custom of his Majesty the Tenno to receive official visits upon busi- 
ness affairs in an edifice which is built for that express public pur- 
pose, and called among us a court ; but his Majesty on this occasion 
recognizes you as a special friend of Japan, and a man devoted to 
the welfare of all nations, and he therefore proposes, by way of 
showing his high respect for you, to receive you, not at a public 
court, but in a private lodge of his own, to which he will come 
clown from his palace to meet you." 

Mr. Seward answered that he appreciated his Majesty's conde- 
scension and kindness. While this conversation was e-oinjr on, 
Mr. Seward, looking through an open window, saw at a long dis- 
tance his friend Mr. Walsh, and Freeman, walking within the pre- 
cinct which had been appointed them. Presently, an officer came 
hurriedly into the presence of the grave international council at the 
summer-house, and announced an intrusion. The prime-minister, 
upon Mr. Seward's explanation, directed that the supposed eaves- 
droppers should not be interfered with, but they must come no 
farther. 

When half an hour had passed, a chamberlain announced his 



72 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Majesty's arrival at the summer-house. Sawa and Ishtabashi re- 
mained with Mr. Seward ; all the other ministers took leave to join 
the Mikado. A final summons came to Sawa ; he rose and con- 
ducted the party some distance along a smooth, narrow walk, till 
they came to a high, shaded knoll, conversing by the way. The 
minister and Ishtabashi now stopped, and, making low genu- 
flections, announced, in subdued and almost whispering tones, that 
his Majesty was to be in a summer-house directly behind this hill. 
After this, there was no word spoken. When they had gone round 
the knoll, the lodge which now contained the heaven-derived Maj- 
esty of Japan came to view. It stands five feet above the ground, is 
one story high, and consists of four square rooms of equal size, with 
sliding partitions, the ceilings six feet high, and the whole building 
surrounded by a veranda. All the rooms were thrown open, and 
were without furniture. The visitors entered the apartment, which 
was at their left, and, looking directly forward, saw only Ishtabashi 
surrounded by a crowd of official persons, all crouched on the floor. 
Having reached the exact centre of the room, Mr. Seward was 
requested to turn to the right. He did this without changing his 
place. The United States minister and the consul stood at his right 
hand. In this position he directly confronted the Mikado, who was 
sitting on a throne raised on a dais two feet above the floor. The 
throne is a large arm-chair, apparently of burnished gold, not differ- 
ent in form or ornament from the thrones which are used on cere- 
monial occasions in European courts. All the cabinet ministers 
and many other officials had arranged themselves below the dais, 
and behind and around the throne. The Mikado was dressed in a 
voluminous robe of reddish-brown brocade, which covered his whole 
person. His head-dress differed in fashion from that which was 
worn by Sawa in our audience with him, only in this, that a kind 
of curved projecting prong was attached to the boat-shaped cap, 
and bent upward, the corresponding appurtenance of the minister's 
cap being shorter, and bent downward. What with the elevation 
of the dais, and the height of his elongated cap, the emperor's per- 
son, though in a sitting posture, seemed to stretch from the floor 
to the ceiling. His appearance in that flowing costume, surrounded 



INTEEVIEW WITH THE MIKADO. 73 

by a mass of ministers and courtiers, enveloped in variegated and 
equally redundant silken folds, resting on the floor, reminded Mr. 
Seward of some of the efforts in mythology to represent a deity 
sitting in the clouds. His dark countenance is neither unintelligent 
nor particularly expressive. He was motionless as a statue. He 
held a sceptre in his right hand, and at his left side wore one richly- 
ornamented, straight sword. What the Mikado and his court 
thought of the costumes of his visitors, with their uncovered heads, 
square, swallow-tailed dress-coats, tight white cravats, tighter panta- 
loons, and stiff, black boots, we shall never know. "Who shall pro- 
nounce between nations in matters of costume % The Mikado raised 
his sceptre, and the prime-minister, kneeling, then announced to 
the United States minister, by the aid of Ishtabashi, also kneeling, 
that he might speak. Mr. De Long advanced a step or two, and, 
bowing three several times, said : " I hope I find your Majesty in 
good health." 

The prime-minister, kneeling again, presented to the Mikado a 
written paper, open, and as large as a sheet of foolscap. The Em- 
peror, after looking at its contents, touched it with his sceptre. 
The prime-minister read it aloud in Japanese. Ishtabashi, again 
kneeling, brought his bead to the floor, and, then raising it, read, 
from a translation which lay before him on the floor, his Majesty's 
gracious answer : " I am very well ; I am glad to see you here." 

Thereupon Mr. De Long, thus reassured, said in a distinct voice, 
worthy of a Western orator as he is : 

" I have the honor to present to your Majesty, William H. Sew- 
ard, a citizen of the United States. Your Majesty having been 
pleased to invite him to this audience, it is unnecessary for me to 
speak of the achievements or of the character of this eminent Ameri- 
can statesman." 

The interpreter, having rendered this speech into Japanese, 
Mr. De Long resumed his place. In accordance with an intima- 
tion from the prime-minister, Mr. Seward now advanced, and 
said : " I am deeply impressed by this gracious reception by the 
sovereign, at the capital of this great, populous, and emulous em- 
pire. I desire to express earnest wishes for your Majesty's per- 



71- JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

sonal health and happiness, and for the peace, welfare, and pros- 
perity of Japan." 

The prime-minister held before his Majesty another paper, 
which, being read by him, was then rendered by the interpreter as 
follows : 

" I am glad to see yon now for the first time. I congratulate 
you on your safe arrival here, after the very long journey you have 
made. The great experience which you have had must enable you 
to give me important information and advice how to promote the 
friendship that happily exists between your country and my own. 
If you would please to communicate any thing in that way, you are 
requested to make it known to my prime-minister, and I invite you 
to express yourself frankly and without reserve." 

Mr. Seward replied : " I thank your Majesty for this gracious 
permission to confer with the prime-minister on international 
affairs. A citizen of the United States, I am visiting Japan and 
the adjacent countries on the Pacific coast, as a traveller and ob- 
server. I wear no official character, and I bring no message. The 
President, however, and all my countrymen, will expect me not to 
leave any thing undone which I can do, to promote a happy under- 
standing between those countries and the United States, as well as 
also the advancement of civilization in both hemispheres. With 
this view, I shall, with great pleasure, avail myself of the privileges 
which your Majesty has granted me." 

The Emperor, with his entire court, remained in place until the 
visitors had retired, after an exchange of salutations. They were 
conducted back to the summer-house. All the Japanese ministers 
soon entered and resumed their places around the table. Refresh- 
ments were served, and Mr. Seward was informed that his audience 
was the first occasion on which the Mikado has completely unveiled 
himself to a visitor. Not only the prime-minister, but all his asso- 
ciates, discussed with Mr. Seward at much length the political re- 
lations of Japan with foreign powers. The minister desired him 
to take notice that the government, in dealing with the vanquished 
Tycoon's party in Japan, at the close of the late revolution, had 
copied the example of toleration given them by the United States. 



INTERVIEW WITH THE MIKADO. 75 

They carefully inquired concerning the machinery employed in the 
United States in taking the decennial census, and also the details 
of the system of collecting and disbursing public revenues. 

They wrote a letter on the spot, addressed to their ambassador at 
Peking and, delivering it to Mr. Seward, solicited his aid of their 
interest at that court. Mr. Seward was deeply impressed on two 
points : First, that although the administration of justice in Japan 
is conducted in a manner widely different from that of the "Western 
nations, yet that the public mind entertains not the least distrust 
of its impartiality. Second, that the administration of the Mikado 
is sincerely emulous and progressive. Again, if there is any danger 
in the near future, it will arise, not from a retarding, but from a 
more rapid acceptance by the government of "Western ideas and 
sentiments, than a people so rude can at once understand. 

The ministers had assigned the whole day for the high consulta- 
tion. They expressed much regret when Mr. Seward announced 
that he was obliged to depart at the earliest moment for Yokohama, 
where the steamer was waiting. "Waiving invitations to examine 
the citadel and the imperial palace and grounds, Mr. Seward re- 
turned to the Consulate, and thence proceeded down the bay, 
directly to this steamer, bound for Hiogo. 

A box followed him which contained all the cake, fruit, and con- 
fectionery, which remained from the entertainment at the Castle. 
The ladies noticed that the varieties of cakes were not merely col- 
ored externally, but through and through — crimson, yellow, purple, 
and indigo. The supply sufficient for the voyage to Shanghai. 

It ought not to mar the effect of the Mikado's courtesy, if we 
state that the audience, in its minutest details, was projected and 
perfected in the Japanese cabinet, with the concurrence of Mr. De 
Long. All European governments, and even that of the United 
States, adopt a similar precaution in regard to official executive 
audiences. 

Japan has especial reasons for prudence. The empire is a soli- 
tary planet, that has remained stationary for centuries, until now it 
is suddenly brought into contact with constellations which, while 
they shed a dazzling light, continually threaten destructive collisions. 



CI1APTEE III. 

FROM YEDDO TO SHANGHAI. 

Hiogo. — The Place of Massacre. — A Japanese Steamer. — The Gulf of Osaka. — A Harem 
on a Pic-nic. — The City of Osaka. — The Tycoon's Castle. — Japanese Troops. — 
Nagasaki. — Beautiful Scenery. — Christians of Nagasaki. — Japanese Character. — 
Departure for China. — Concluding Reflections on Japan. 

Hiogo (Kobe), Monday, October 10th. — A voyage of thirty-six 
hours, in which night and rain have prevented all observation, has 
brought us to this southeastern port on the island of Niphon. The 
United States Consul, Mr. Stewart, and the agent of the Pacific 
Mail Line, came on board in the early morning. They were sur- 
prised when Mr. Seward pointed out to them with minuteness and 
accuracy the several places of interest in the port. " This," he said 
" is the European settlement, that place behind it the native town 
of Hiogo : the road which divides them is the one on which the 
Mikado's army was moving northward at the time when it fired 
upon and massacred the foreigners in 1884 : this is the field through 
which the foreigners were pursued by the Japanese soldiers on that 
occasion : it was in the bay here on our right that the natives 
massacred the French naval surveying party in their boats : was 
it not in the building which I see on that hill that the Mikado's 
officers, who were condemned to death for those atrocious outrages, 
committed hari-kari, and that the foreign ministers interposed 
after seventeen such self-executions, and said, ' It is enough ? ' On 
this knoll is the place where the offenders were buried." 

The official reports of those painful transactions which Mr. Van 



OSAKA AND HIOGO. 77 

Valkenburgh, the United States Minister, made to the Department 
of State, had left this distinct and ineffaceable impression on Mr. 
Seward's mind. It is five years since those massacres occurred. 
We now find that the people, obeying the instinct of nationality, 
have erected a monument over the grave of each of those victims, 
and on that monument have recorded his voluntary death as an act 
of civil and religious martyrdom. So true to country and to God 
are the impulses of our common nature everywhere. 

Hiogo is twenty miles distant from Osaka, and bears the same 
relation to that great southern metropolis of Japan that Yokohama 
bears to the central one of Yeddo. Hiogo, opened quite recently 
to foreign commerce, is not especially successful. Since the opening 
of Japan, the population of Yeddo has been reduced from three 
millions to one million, chiefly by removals to Yokohama. On the 
contrary, Osaka has not materially declined, nor has Hiogo consid- 
erably increased. The foreign population of Hiogo is at most two 
hundred. The importance of its harbor is due to its double advan- 
tages as a port of Osaka and a gateway to the Inland Sea of Japan. 

October 11th. — We dined yesterday with Mr. Senter's amiable 
family, and slept in the Japanese bungalow, now occupied as the 
Consulate, by the side of its pretty lotus-garden. Although the 
lotus has been held sacred from time immemorial as a divine 
symbol throughout the whole East, it is nevertheless indigenous 
only in tropical and semi-tropical climates. We now for the first 
time see in perfection on its native soil this magnificent flower, of 
which, " whosoever eateth wishes never again to depart, nor to see 
his native country, if it groweth not there." 

Here the intelligent Japanese governor passed two hours with 
Mr. Seward, explaining the system of provincial administration, 
which seems very effective. He learns also that education of all 
classes is compulsory, and that the schools are maintained by taxa- 
tion, which is remitted in behalf of the poor. 

We went, this morning, on board a small coasting steamer, 
which was built in the United States for Japanese owners, and is 
managed exclusively by natives. The gulf of Osaka has pictu- 



78 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



resque shores, thickly studded with villages, clustering at the water's 
edge. The sloping hills are terraced and irrigated, and their sum- 
mits are planted with forests. The Temple of the Moon, standing 
on the highest peak of the mountain, reflected the morning sunlight 



:fe^ 




TEMPLE AT OSAKA. 



from gilded roofs, resting on snow-white columns. The moon in 
Japan is a masculine deity. Is this exceptional idea due to the 
native jealousy of the gentle sex \ Or is it owing to the fact that 



A HAREM ON A PICNIC. 79 

it is a man's face and not a woman's that is seen in that benignant 
orb ? Quien sabe ? 

It is the bar at Osaka which forces the ocean-trade to a harbor 
so distant as Hiogo. Our countryman, Admiral Bell, lost his life 
two years ago, in sounding it. Our steamer could not cross, though 
drawing only four feet. 

Osaka, as early as the sixteenth century, became a great com- 
mercial city. Its temples, surpassing those of Yeddo in number, 
vie with those of spiritual Miako. As we approached the bar, we 
saw a gay Japanese yacht, of perhaps two hundred and fifty tons, 
moving slowly out to sea under a light wind. The sails were 
quaint, like the form of the vessel they impelled, which was brilliant 
with scarlet and blue paint and gilding. A daimio sat at the stern 
on the upper deck, gorgeously arrayed in silks and lacquer, sur- 
rounded by numerous retainers and a bevy of highly-painted and 
elegantly-dressed young women, who were entertaining him with 
a concert of guitars, flutes, and drums. Manifestly the daimio was 
giving his harem a picnic. 

We were transferred here to a small, neat, flat-bottomed bamboo 
barge, with a canopy overhead and a deck covered with mats, in 
which we floated over the bar, and up to the great sea-wall of the 
city. 

The confluence of two rivers with the sea makes the harbor of 
Osaka, like that of Charleston. The rivers are formed into canals, 
and connected at convenient intervals by cross-canals. Yenice is 
not more noticeable for its gondolas and barges, nor Amsterdam 
for its pleasure-boats, than Osaka for its picturesque shallops cov- 
ered with bright awnings of various colors. It is perhaps from 
the amusements of the regatta that the women in Osaka have ac- 
quired the fame of being the prettiest in the empire. Time served 
us to traverse only three or four of the thirty or forty canals, but 
sufficient to enable us to reach the more important monuments and 
institutions of the metropolis, to notice the regularity of the streets, 
the grace and lightness of the hundred cedar bridges, and to wonder 
at the immense traffic carried on by families who dwell in the 
vessels they navigate. The wealth and enterprise of Japan being 



80 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

in the southern part of the empire, Osaka is the domestic main 
emporium. 

While, for centuries, state policy required the daimios to reside 
a part of each year with their armed retainers at Yeddo, the po- 
litical capital, the same daimios made their metropolitan homes in 
commercial Osaka. Here, on the banks of the canals, th>ey erected 
palaces, with storehouses and wharves and offices. Here they re- 
ceived their rents in kind, and exchanged them in trade. 

Between these palaces the canals are lined with cheaply -built 
dwellings, two stories high, with a veranda around the first story. 




STREET IN OSAKA. 



The lower story is a mercantile convenience, being washed with 
the tides and floods. The people seen in the streets here, as well 
as elsewhere in Japan, wear wooden shoes and dress coarsely. 
The nudity, so frequent at the north, becomes here more common 
and offensive. Crowds followed us with a curiosity Avhich shows 
that few foreigners visit Osaka. Notwithstanding the mean appear- 
ance of dwellings and people, the city contrasts favorably with 



THE CASTLE OF OSAKA. 81 

Yeddo, in show of prosperity and affluence. Some of the temples 
are built within the areas of the princely palaces. More commonly, 
however, they are independent and spacious, and, like the palaces, 
accessible through canals and basins. They are on the same model 
with those at Yeddo, but more lavishly ornamented with allegorical 
carving, and statuary in granite and bronze. Men are seldom seen 
in or about the temples in Japan, but woman, poor, meek and rag- 
ged, though forbidden, steals in there, reverently paying her devo- 
tion to the gods and pitifully asking alms. How could woman en- 
dure existence anywhere on earth without the solaces of religion % 

" From all ancienty to the present time," as a stump-orator, we 
once heard, expressed it, the Japanese have made their irregular 
and grotesque coins with the use only of the hammer. The govern- 
ment has just now established a mint at Osaka, with machinery of 
the latest invention, and equal, it is claimed, to the Philadelphia 
Mint. Here they are making new coins similar in form and de- 
vice to those of the Western nations, the value being based on sub- 
divisions of the Mexican dollar. 

Livy has given us what he says was the speech of Eomulus 
when he had founded Eome : " If all the strength of cities lay in 
the height of their ramparts or the depths of their ditches, we should 
have great reason to be in fear for that which we have now built." 
The Japanese might be excused if they should reverse this senti- 
ment, and speak with great confidence of the security of the empire 
derived from ramparts and ditches. As with Yeddo, so with Osaka. 
Its boast is its castle, an imperial residence and fortress of mikados 
and tycoons. We tried ineffectually to obtain a measurement of 
some of the granite blocks of this structure. We think it safe, how- 
ever, to say, that one of them is thirty feet long, fifteen feet high 
and five feet thick. JSTo one knows where, when or how, such im- 
mense stones were riven at the quarry, and brought to the summit 
of the lofty hill, which overlooks the city of Osaka. The Tycoon in 
the late civil war, however, took possession of the castle with his 
forces, only to find it a prison, and insecure at that. He was dis- 
lodged by the Mikado's army, and made his escape on a United 
States steamer. Before leaving the citadel, he destroyed its defensive 



82 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

works, so as to render it unavailable to the conqueror. Now used 
as a camp of instruction, it is as jealously closed against visitors as 
the castle at Yeddo. Instructions having come down from the 
capital to the Governor here, as well as to the one at Hiogo, to 
show consideration to Mr. Seward, we were conducted through the 
castle, and allowed to witness the drill, and at the same time were 
honored with a serenade from the trumpeters, which consisted 'of 
European artillery and cavalry calls jumbled together on French 
horns. The din and discord may be imagined. The bronze-faced 
native Japanese troops, lower than European in stature, and bow- 
legged, but dressed in French uniforms, recalled our recollections 
of the first organization of negro troops in the late civil war. The 
Japanese are not less docile and orderly, and they went through 
evolutions and drill, according to French tactics, commendably. 

The Japanese umbrellas are the best as they are the cheapest in 
the world, but they could give us no protection from the rain-storm 
which overtook us in the dilapidated castle. Captain Kinder's 
family being the only European one in Osaka, took us in and dried 
our clothes, and gave us all we had time to take, " a hasty plate of 
soup." When we reached our yacht, black night with high winds 
shut out from us the beautiful gulf-shores, and so passed away 
Osaka, to be seen no more by us, for we have taken care not to eat 
of the '"'fruit of destiny," the lotus. The heaving.of the steamer 
on the now roughened sea was uncomfortable, but the tossing and 
pitching of the small boat which conveyed us from the yacht to the 
side-ladder of the New York was dangerous and frightful. 

Nagasaki, October lUh. — As Hiogo commands the southeast, 
so Nagasaki commands the northwest entrance of the Inland Sea. 
That sea is a tortuous passage, flowing between the North Pacific 
Ocean on the east and the Yellow Sea or Straits of Corea on the 
west coast of Japan, separating the northern island of Niphon from 
the southern islands of Toksima and Kiusiu. How and when was 
this channel made? Were the three mountain-islands which it 
separates once compact land, and did the ocean force its passage 
through? Was all Japan once submerged, and were the islands 



ENTRANCE TO NAGASAKI. 



83 



thrown up in their present form ? Who can say % Not we. Per- 
haps Agassiz might. We must content ourselves with writing that, 




ENTRANCE TO NAGASAKI. 



like most inland seas, this of Japan is marvellously beautiful. 
Four hundred miles long, of varying width, everywhere deep, it 
washes the shores of the main islands in some places, while in 
others it is broken into twenty narrower channels which break on 
the shores of uncounted lesser islands. In this the Inland Sea re- 
sembles our own Lake of the Woods, which takes its strange name 
from the fact that the island-surface enclosed within its shores 
exceeds in area the water-surface of the lake. These islands of the 
Inland Sea are said to be three thousand, but we are inclined to 
think that islands in groups like these are never accurately counted. 
Everybody speaks of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence, 
without remembering that they are reckoned at eighteen hundred. 



84 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

The channel twists around and among the islands in all direc- 
tions, so that the headlands which we pass seem as fleeting as the 
clouds, producing ever-varying scenery. During one hour, we arc 
making our gloomy way under the deep shadow of a naked preci- 
pice four thousand feet high. In the next, we are passing terraced 
hill-sides, covered with sunlit orchards, flowery plains and fields, and 
forests in which the bamboo, the tulip and the cypress commingle. 
It seems as if the busy population of the whole empire has clustered 
on these romantic shores. Manufacturing towns alternate with 




f^r. 



^PflpS^fls^l^S^w^^^^ "' 



NAGASAKI nAKBOR. 



fishing-villages, and every nook is filled with quaint and miniature 
shipping. 

Night set in, and the bell summoned us to dinner as we were 
beginning to round a jutting promontory of the western shore. 
Shall we ever forgive Mr. Eandall for beguiling us with his humor- 
ous stories until we were brought suddenly to our feet, by the 



THE HARBOR OF NAGASAKI. 



85 



dropping of the anchor, and the firing of a gun, which announced 
to us that we had arrived in port ? 

A moonlight view of Nagasaki ; fitting sequel of a two-days' 
voyage through the Inland Sea. We forgive Mr. Randall; the 
first view of Nagasaki ought to be by moonlight. The bay is small ; 
we almost know, without being told, every object around us. These 
vessels on the larboard are Japanese ships-of-war. This steamer 
directly before us is a German man-of-war ; this ship on our star- 
board quarter, with its black funnels and its stubbed masts, is the 
British admiral's flag-ship ; and this long, narrow steamer is a Rus- 
sian corvette. Beyond the area thus occupied by armed vessels 
are two American merchant-ships and forty awkward but sea- 
worthy Chinese junks. On encircling hills, which rise two thou- 






TEMPLE OP BCDDHA AT NAGASAKI. 



86 



JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



sand feet out of the sea, are the temples and groves of Buddha. 
Those dark shades below them are hanging gardens in which the 
consulates and the merchants' residences are embowered. This 
ravine which, stretches from the shore upward on the hill-side is 
the ancient native town ; this quay on our right is the seat of active 
trade ; this island just before us, hardly broader than a flat-boat, is 
the famous Decima, for two hundred years the mart and the prison, 
the boast and the shame of the Dutch traders in Japan ; those ter- 
raced hill-sides opposite the town are the city of the dead ; and this 




VIEW OF DECIMA. 



high, conical rock, which seems to close the passage to the sea, is 
Papenburg, memorable as the scene of the martyrdom of the early 
Jesuit teachers and converts in Japan. 

What does this scene want to perfect its magic? Only music! 
Instant with the thought, the band on the German frigate de- 
livers its national hymn, " Des Deutsche Yaterland ; " then come 
swelling forth from the British flag-ship the inspiring notes of 
" God save the Queen ; " and these only die away, when the solemn 



THE JESUITS IN JAPAN. 87 

national anthem of Russia, " Thou pious and gentle leader, shield 
of the church of believers, God be the protector and defender of 
our great Czar," grander than all, rolls over the sea. 

Is not this glorious concert, under the flags of these great Chris- 
tian nations, in these distant and lonely waters, suggestive ? Mr. 
Seward answered, "Yes, but deceptive." The German is here 
lying in wait for his French enemy ; the British admiral is here to 
intimidate the semi-barbarous races ; and the Russian admiral is 
guarding the eastern gate of his master's empire, which towers be- 
hind and above Asiatic and European states on both continents. 
So it is that jealousy and ambition breathe in the notes of this ma- 
jestic serenade. 

October lMh. — It is because we cannot swim that we fear the 
deep. It is because we delight in climbing that we admire the high. 
While the flat is dull, the circle is our chosen form for the beautiful. 
Thus the amphitheatre, with its circular and lofty walls, was adopted 
for the Pantheon as well as for the Coliseum ; though it has since 
been sometimes discarded from the temple, it remains nevertheless 
universally associated with the stage and the hippodrome. If we 
must live in a town, give us one which, like Nagasaki, is an amphi- 
theatre, whose base is the sea, and whose towering walls are green 
and terraced mountains. It was under an inspiration like this that 
Peter on the mount said : " Master, it is good for us to be here. 
Let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one 
for Elias." The preaching of Christianity here by St. Francis 
Xavier, in 1549, was followed by such success that, within fifty 
years afterward, Nagasaki was surrendered by its native prince to 
the Portuguese, and became at once the see of an episcopate, and 
an emporium of Portuguese trade. But Xavier little apprehended 
that the Order of Jesus, which he was introducing, would become 
so arrogant and ambitious as to contest with the. native sovereign 
absolute dominion within the empire. The Portuguese Chris- 
tians thus becoming obnoxious to the government, all foreigners 
were within the first hundred years excluded from Japan, under 
pain of death, while persecutions more cruel than those of Nero 



88 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

were visited on the teachers and converts alike. A few Protestant 
merchants from Amsterdam, renouncing their religion, joined the 
government in the persecution of the Christians, and were per- 
mitted, under humiliating surveillance, to replace the Portuguese 
at Nagasaki. This truly pitiable colony was found here on the 
arrival of the United States squadron in 1853. It was understood, 
at that time, that the Christian faith had been effectually extirpated 
by the massacres at Papenburg. The world was astonished, how- 
ever, in 1867, by a discovery that the Christian religion was still 
living in the province of Nagasaki, and that a large number of 
natives were condemned to death or servitude for their clandestine 
adherence to that faith. The Western nations interposed in their 
behalf. The government contented itself with forcibly deporting 
twenty-seven hundred of the offending Christians from their homes, 
and distributing them through the more distant provinces of the 
empire. This new persecution being thus arrested, it is manifestly 
the intention of the government now to adopt the principle of uni- 
versal toleration. 

It would be pleasant to dwell on the hospitalities of Mr. and 
Mrs. Mangum, and on the courtesies of the foreign fleets. 

Yellow Sea, October 15th. — Leaving Nagasaki yesterday morn- 
ing, we carefully examined Coal Island and the other islands which 
close the magnificent harbor. Nor did we omit to notice that 
marvellous rock, which, having been dropped nobody knows how 
or from where, is lodged like a wedge between two naked natural 
abutments. Our parting view of Japan was a sunset glimpse of 
the Goto Group, the western outpost of the Island Empire. 

It is hardly more satisfactory to quit Japan after a residence 
of only twenty days, than it would have been to leave it altogether 
unvisited ; nevertheless, there is Peking before us, " a bourn from 
which no traveller " can " return " later than November, and so 
we must onward. Let us set down our memories, such as they 
are, while they are fresh. 

Although society in Japan is divided, as it is in every other coun- 
try, into high classes and low classes, classes wearing two swords, 



JAPANESE CIVILIZATION. 89 

classes wearing one sword, and classes wearing no swords at all, yet 
the people are universally docile and amiable. We saw not one act 
of rudeness, and heard not one word of ill-temper, in the country. 
Heaven knows that, in the arrogant assumption by foreigners of 
superiority among them, the people have provocations enough for 
both ! One of the Japanese ambassadors to the United States in 
1867 was robbed at Baltimore of a richly-mounted sword. Neither 
he nor his government made any complaint. Mr. Seward for- 
tunately recovered and restored it, with a national apology. Foreign 
residents in Japanese cities are often timid, jealous, and suspicious. 
Some are prone to exaggerate inconveniences into offences. Others 
are dogmatic and contemptuous. Even one of the most generous 
of American citizens, when driving Mr. Seward through the streets 
of Yeddo, could not forbear from cracking his whip over the bare 
heads of the native crowd. Mr. Seward endured this flourish 
silently, but he vehemently and earnestly implored his impetuous 
friend to spare a litter of sleeping puppies which lay in the way. 
Women and children shrieked as they caught up the mangled 
brutes behind the carriage- wheels, but the relentless charioteer 
only said : "It will never do to stop for such things ; let them learn 
to keep their streets clear." Intimidation and menace naturally 
provoke anger and resentment. European and American fleets are 
always hovering over the coasts of Japan. Though the eye of the 
Japanese is long and curved, it sees as clearly as the foreign eye, 
which is round and straight. Human nature is the same in all 
races. Who could wonder if the Asiatics fail to love, where they 
are taught only to fear ? 

It would be manifestly unfair to judge the Japanese by the 
standard of Western civilization. Measured by the Oriental one, it 
cannot be denied .that it excels the Asiatic states to whose system it 
belongs. The affections of family and kindred seem as strong here 
as elsewhere. There is no neglect of children ; there is no want of 
connubial care ; no lack of parental love or filial devotion. Nor is it 
to be forgotten that, in regard to domestic morals, we are giving 
the Japanese some strange instructions. On this very ship on 
which we have embarked, there is a German merchant who, after a 



90 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

short but successful career in Yokohama, is returning rich to his 
native land ; with him his child, a pretty brunette boy, two years 
old. The father brings him to us to be caressed. "We ask, "Where 
is the Japanese mother \ " "I have left her behind ; she would 
not be fit to bring up the boy, or to be seen herself in a European 
country." 

No one denies that the Japanese have both the courage and 
the politeness which belong to an heroic people. They are ac- 
cused of practising fraud, cunning, and cruelty in war. Are 
they more vicious in this respect than other pagan or even Chris- 
tian nations ? Do not the records of war on our own soil contain 
a melancholy catalogue of similar crimes? Are not the pages 
which record Napoleon's great campaigns sullied by deeds alike 
unworthy of our race? The Japanese are sanguinary in civil 
war. Are they more so than the French were in their first 
great Revolution ? 

The painstaking culture which extends from the water's edge to 
the mountain-verge ; the tedious manipulation practised in mech- 
anism ; and the patient drudgery of the coolies in the cities, in labor 
elsewhere performed by domestic animals, show that the Japanese 
are industrious. Though the empire has, from its earliest period, 
been isolated from the civilized world, yet the silks of that country 
were found among the richest freights of Venice. A Japanese 
bazaar is seen in every modern European city; and there is no 
drawing-room, museum, or palace in the world, which is completely 
furnished without Japanese fabrics. 

.They have no legislature, yet they have uniform laws, and these 
laws are legibly inscribed on tablets at every cross-road and market- 
place. Although science and literature in the West have borrowed 
little or nothing from these islands, the Japanese are nevertheless 
a reading and writing people. We hardly know whether Boston, 
Philadelphia, or New York shop-windows display greater number 
or variety of maps, books, charts and pictures, than the stalls of 
Yeddo, Osaka, or Miako. 

Japan is populous, whether we allow it twenty millions, as 
some of our missionaries do, or fifty millions, as the prime-minister 



A RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. 91 

claimed in his conversation with Mr. Seward. Nevertheless, men- 
dicity, though unrestrained by law, is less offensive than in Naples, 
or even in New York. 

It would be a curious study to inquire how and when the se- 
vere feudal model of the middle ages of Europe obtained a place 
in Japan, or how it has continued so long among a people so mer- 
curial, and yet so thoughtful. While in theory the Mikado is sov- 
ereign proprietor, the whole domain practically belongs to the 
daimios, who are rich. The revenues of many of them are not less 
than the public revenues of some of the States of our Federal Union. 
Though the peasantry are poor, we no vv here heard a complaint 
against rents or taxes, or the price of labor. Moreover, the Japan- 
ese, while they encourage immigration, never emigrate. "We infer 
from these facts that, if not a happy people, they are at least a 
contented one. 

They were a religious people when they accepted the Mikado, 
and gave him their reverence. They must have been a religious 
people, when they accepted from the Mikado the teachings of the 
Sintu sect ; they must have been a religious people, when the doc- 
trines of Buddha supplanted so generally the dreamy mysticisms of 
the earlier faith. Xavier found them a religious people, willing 
to accept the teachings of Christianity. But the religious age in 
Japan has passed. Confucian philosophy has undermined all myth- 
ological creeds, and left the Japanese a nation of doubters. Gov- 
ernment now makes no provision for the support of religious orders. 
Their revenues, derived from ancient foundations, are diminishing. 
The priesthood is as inoffensive as it is poor. It may be expected 
that under this toleration the Christian faith will now, for the first 
time, come into public consideration in Japan in the way it ought 
to come, that is to say, in connection with the science, literature, 
and art, and the political, moral, and social institutions of the 
Western nations. 

The Japanese are less an imitative people than an inquiring one. 
They are not, however, excitable concerning the events of the day, 
but rather diligent in studying what is useful. All their dramatic 
representations are didactic ; and, though they have a fondness for 



92 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

legerdemain, they enjoy it not because it is amusing, but because it 
makes them think from power to product, from cause to effect. 

The most unpropitious feature of Japanese society is the gross- 
ness of the popular sense in regard to woman. Among the com- 
mon people neither sex maintains decency in dress, and they use 
the public bathing-houses promiscuously. In Japan, as elsewhere 
throughout the East, there indeed is marriage, but it is marriage 
without the rights and responsibilities of that relation. This de- 
basement of woman has tainted and corrupted the whole state. 
We are obliged to conclude that domestic virtue has not a promi- 
nent place in the morals of Japan, although some glimpses which 
we have had of life in the upper classes have inclined us to believe 
that among them vice is not altogether free from restraint. 

Japanese history derives many of the institutions and much of 
the science, literature and morals of the country, not from China, 
but from ancient Corea, which seems to have taken precedence of 
China in civilization, as the Pelasgian civilization took precedence 
of the Grecian. The Japanese may, however, be considered as a 
distinct and independent Mongolian race, which has matured its 
own civilization, without having been deeply affected by intrusion 
from any quarter. In this respect the Japanese seem to have en- 
joyed a fortune like that of the Aztecs of Mexico. That people 
had developed a unicpie civilization, and were maturing it, when 
they came into conflict with European nations. The Mexican 
nation went down under the violence of the shock, and altogether 
disappeared. The Japanese had in like manner effected and 
were maturing a civilization of their own when they were 
reached by the "Western nations. More advanced than the Aztecs, 
they more clearly apprehended the danger of the contact, and with 
great promptness and decision they effectually resisted and defeated 
European intervention. Having thus isolated themselves, they 
remained so nearly three hundred years. If they did not advance 
during that time, they did not fall back. That isolation, however, 
has at last come to an end ; steam, the printing-press, and the 
electric telegraph, have brought the Western nations on all the 
shores of Japan. It is manifest that the two distinct and widely- 



PROSPECTS OF JAPAK 93 

different civilizations cannot continue in such near contact. The 
great problem now is, whether the European civilization can be 
extended over Japan, without the destruction, not merely of the 
political institutions of the country, but of the Japanese nation 
itself. The Japanese are practically defenceless against the West- 
ern States. If they are to be brought completely into the society 
of those nations, it must either be by the application of force, or by 
that of persuasion and encouragement. The interests of both re- 
quire that the latter mode should be adopted, but it yet remains 
to be seen whether Western civilization has reached such a moral 
plane as to secure its voluntary and peaceful adoption. 

There is much of discouragement in the prospect. Few station- 
ary or declining nations have been regenerated by the intervention 
of states more highly civilized. Most such have perished under the 
shock. On the other hand, there are some reasons for hope. Man- 
kind seem at last to have risen equally above the theory that uni- 
versal conquest is beneficent, and above the theory that it is pos- 
sible. Commerce has largely taken the place of war, and it is now 
universally felt that interest and humanity go hand in hand. It is 
the distinction of the United States, and we may hope fortunate for 
Japan, that they have come to the front of the Western states as 
tutors of the decaying Asiatic nations. 

If the tutorship of the United States in Japan is to be made 
successful, it must be based on deeper and broader principles of 
philanthropy than have heretofore been practised in the intercourse 
of nations — a philanthropy which shall recognize not merely the 
distinction of strength and power between nations, but the duties 
of magnanimity, moderation and humanity — a philanthropy which 
shall not be content with sending armies or navies to compel, but 
which shall send teachers to instruct, and establish schools on the 
American system, in which philosophy, politics and morals, as well 
as religious faith, are taught, with just regard to their influences in 
social and domestic life. 



CHAPTER IY. 

THE C0AS1 OF CHINA. 

Woosung. — U. S. Ship Colorado. — Shanghai. — European " Concessions." — A Mandarin 
Procession. — Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen. — European and Chinese Civilization. — For- 
eign Prejudices against the Chinese. — The Shan Tung. — The Yellow Sea. — The News 
from France. — Chee-Foo, the Newport of China. — A Rough Voyage. 

Woosung, October 17th. — A respite from politics, philanthropy 
and morals. Why should we not allow ourselves to see things in 
the natural way, not to say that there is little more to be learned 
of the nature of the millstone, by looking into it, than there is by 
studying its surface ? 

A great ocean-sight was reserved for us on the Yellow Sea. 
Just at sunrise this morning, unnumbered whales appeared off the 
larboard bow, first throwing up glittering fountains of spray, then 
rolling their great, glossy, black backs upward, then with their huge 
forked tails waving adieu as they plunged under the waves. The 
shoal waters of the Chinese coast have the hue of the Missouri, and 
give the Yellow Sea its name. 

We have crossed the great estuary of the Yang-tse-kiang, and 
arrived at Woosung, the outer haven of Shanghai, fourteen miles 
below that city. The country is on all sides a low plain, without 
landmark. Only three days ago, we left Japan, green as if it were 
June ; here the fields are dry and brown. We have October with- 
out its mellowness, and yet Shanghai is only one degree south of 
Nagasaki. Are islands always warmer and more genial than con- 
tinental shores? Did Sancho Panza understand this when he 



THE "CONCESSION" AT SHANGHAI. 95 

stipulated for an island instead of a government on the main- 
land? 

Many American and European merchant- ships are riding at 
anchor around us, while the river near its banks is crowded with 
native junks and fishing-smacks, not to speak of a fleet of thirty or 
more high and awkward, lazy-looking, small Chinese sloops-of-war, 
iu all carrying two hundred guns. They display at their mast- 
heads figured and ornamental yellow bunting enough to cover their 
decks. How pleasant it is to us to recognize the United States 
flag-ship Colorado, sitting gracefully in the midst, as if calmly sur- 
veying the naval array ! We have counted her guns, though we 
have no need to count her stars and stripes — we know that they 
are all there. Our glasses have failed to discover our old friend 
Admiral John Rodgers, but we know that he must be there. Who 
else could have ordered that double line of seamen in dark blue to 
cheer Mr. Seward as we are passing, and that band to strike up the 
inspiring strains of " Hail Columbia ? " 

Shanghai, October 18th. — Consul-General Seward and a dozen 
other Americans, with kind consideration, took us from our anchor- 
age, and brought us by steam-yacht to the " Bund." 

Let no one, however, infer from this date that we have arrived 
in China. Shanghai, as we have thus far seen it, seems to us less 
like an outpost of the Central Flowery Kingdom, than a town on 
our native shores. This hospitable mansion of Kussell & Company, 
all the other houses, this quay, this street, all the streets, this 
bridge, these churches, these banking-houses, warehouses, and 
steamers, these carriages and horses, these men and women, all 
that we have seen on the river or on shore, are European ; for so 
they call here whatever is foreign, whether it has come from one 
side of the Atlantic or from the other. This is, in short, the 
" Concession." 

We have enjoyed our first drive in the country, that is to say, 
an excursion of six miles through the " Concession." Is the air of 
constraint which the natives here wear in presence of foreigners 
due more to fear than to hate ? These contracted concessions, made 



96 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



by the government to foreigners, remind one of " the liberties," so 
called, which were drawn round jails in Europe and the United 
States before the abolition of imprisonment for debt. " You are safe 
within them ; we guarantee nothing outside of them." Neither 
party looks with pleasure on "the Concession." The foreigner 
wants it enlarged ; the native dislikes it altogether. 

While writing these not very profound reflections, we were 
summoned to the great gate of " the Compound," to see for the 
first time a mandarin procession. 




MANDARIN PROCESSION. 



It is the custom of a mandarin, when he moves abroad on social 
or official visits, to be attended by as many retainers as he has, or 
can hire. He proceeds, dressed in silken robes, in a sedan-chair, 



CHI-TAJEN AND SUN-TAJEN. 97 

with a square, glaring, scarlet canopy, borne by coolies, over his 
head. Fantastic groups go before and behind the chair, dressed in 
faded finery, carrying umbrellas of all forms and colors, huge 
gilded maces and staves, banners, flags, and pennons, incomprehen- 
sible, but fiery red and ragged. A straggling company of musi- 
cians leads the procession, while others mingle with it promiscu- 
ously, all beating and banging on noisy gongs, clattering sticks, 
and deafening drums. The procession in the present case was of 
double dignity and importance : it conveyed two mandarins instead 
of one. Falstaff's "tattered prodigal," although he had "misused 
the king's purse," was less grotesque. We thought that as the man- 
darins approached they appeared unbecomingly eager to show them- 
selves. "We did them injustice. Leaning from their chair- windows 
they bowed low and gesticulated reverentially as they passed us. 
To our surprise, we recognized in their persons Chi-Tajen and Sim- 
Taj en, survivors of the late lamented Burlingame in the great Chi- 
nese embassy which visited the United States in 1868, and which 
took final leave of Mr. Seward at his residence in Auburn. 

" Wot I look at," said Samuel Weller, " is the hextraordinary 
and wonderful coincidence." Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen, since 
they parted with us, have spent two years in accomplishing their 
eastern voyage around the world, and they have reached Shang- 
hai on the very day we have arrived here in our western circum- 
navigation ! 

The pageant passed quickly by, and we returned to our cham- 
ber. How absurd this exhibition had seemed ; how differently it 
made the ambassadors appear here, from the show they made 
abroad ! " Yes," said Mr. Seward, " it is even so ; it is an evi- 
dence of the decay of the empire. States, like individual men, re- 
tain their pride long after they have lost the means to support it." 

Somehow it happens that, wherever we go, the resting-places 
of the dead attract our attention before the homes of the living. 
The peculiarity of burial here is, that the tombs rise in great hil- 
locks, everywhere in the cultivated fields, and even in the gardens. 
So far as we have observed, the monuments are few, cheap, and 
inelegant- 



98 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Shanghai, October 19th. — Shanghai is immensely agitated con- 
cerning the recent massacre at Tien-Tsin. We find European vol- 
unteers, a hundred strong, drilling for defence against an appre- 
hended Chinese invasion of " the Concession." Mrs. Seward, the 
consul general's wife, has just presented those volunteers with a 
standard of colors. Everybody is astonished at Mr. Seward's rash- 
ness in going to Peking at the very moment they understand that 
all the foreign legations there are coining to this port for protec- 
tion, under the guns ol their respective nations. Admiral Rodgers, 
with his staff, called upon Mr. Seward to-day. Although it is im- 
possible for the Colorado to ascend the Pei-ho to Tung-Chow, he 
considers it his duty to visit the capital personally. He has ar- 
ranged to accompany Mr. Seward there next week. 

Mrs. Warden, our hostess, last night had the entire foreign 
society of Shanghai at a ball, which, although given in honor of 
Mrs. Seward, the bride, had been postponed until our arrival. 

Gentlemen largely predominate in European Shanghai. The 
recent arrival of so many American ladies was deemed a social 
event. Our lady-friends at home will be interested in knowing 
that all China furnishes not one mantua-maker or milliner. The 
dresses for the ladies come on orders from Paris, London, or ISTew 
York. Native women have no need of European costumes. The 
work here of the seamstress and tailor is done exclusively by men. 
They come to your house and execute your commands quickly, 
patiently, and cheaply, and in doing so they faithfully copy every 
pattern you give them, and omit nothing. We are inclined to 
think that the story of the American merchant who ordered a 
dozen pairs of yellow nankeen pantaloons, and, sending as a pat- 
tern a pair which had been torn and patched, received twelve pairs 
similarly patched in execution of his order, is not altogether an 
invention. 

• The contrast between European and Chinese civilization was 
presented sharply to us this morning in our passage from open 
European Shanghai, with its population of three thousand, to the 
native town of Shanghai, with its one hundred thousand inhabit- 
ants, shut up within a circular wall twenty-five feet high, and two 



lillli, 
III! 



' 




NATIVE SHANGHAI. 99 

and one-third miles in circumference. We do not think that any 
vouth of our own day, however vigorous his arm, however strong 
the sling or heavy the pebble he might use, could reduce that wall, 
which was built doubtless in the time of Kublai Khan, but we 
would not answer for its standing against such an arm or weapon 
as that which brought down the giant of the Philistines. The town 
was easily captured by the English in 1843. When we had passed 
within the gates, and saw the narrow streets, and the crowded 
structures, built of the most combustible materials, we wondered 
what can be the Chinese idea in keeping up the wall, which, in case 
of conflagration, must render escape impossible. Native Shanghai, 
like the foreign settlement, is built on an alluvial soil, and is insa- 
lubrious, though reclaimed many centuries ago. This city is the 
seat of an immense inland trade, in which the tropical products of 
Southern China, with the hardier ones of Central China, are ex- 
changed over the Yang-tse-kiang and the Imperial Canal for the tim- 
ber, cattle, cereals, wool, and other products of Northern China, Mon- 
golia, Mantchooria, and Russia. The annual exports of the town 
exceed in value the whole mineral production of the United States. 
It need not be said, therefore, that its merchants are shrewd, in- 
dustrious and prosperous. It is marvellous how they have crowded 
so small an area with warehouses, manufactories, shops, gardens, 
theatres, dwellings, and temples. All these are built on a scale so 
small and mean, that, though each structure proves adequate to its 
purpose, it is only a miniature model or a toy. Nevertheless, the 
people of the town manifested much pride in showing us their con- 
tracted dwellings built or exquisitely ornamented with cedar and 
other fragrant woods, their miniature lakes filled with dwarf moun- 
tains which sometimes rise to the enormous height of thirty feet, 
and which the Chinese imagination magnifies into a range of Him- 
alayas. We found there, besides tea-houses vastly finer than any 
in Japan, numerous guildhalls elaborately ornamented, in which 
boards and other associations of merchants and manufacturers daily 
congregate to discuss matters of trade, and such politics as they 
have. With all this, there is not' one street accessible by car- 
riage of any kind. The visitor is even obliged to leave his sedan- 



100 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

chair at the gate, and make his way through crowded lanes at most 
six or eight feet wide. Surface drainage is used, and the streets 
are so offensive and disgusting that every European in the " con- 
cession " warns the stranger against going there. 

Contrary to what we saw in Japan, the native Chinaman shows 
not the least emulation or imitation of Western customs and man- 
ners. All his ways manifest a spirit of self-assertion and indepen- 
dence, if not a contemptuous one. We now comprehend the puzzle 
of the Chinaman in San Francisco. The scenes which the European 
avoids here by taking refuge within the " concession " are con- 
tinually present with him wherever he moves in San Francisco. It 
is probable that the contact will work an improvement in Chinese 
morals and manners there, sooner than the separation will bring 
out that result here. 

But we eschewed philosophy for to-day, and here we have fallen 
into it again. 

Shanghai, October 20th. — A renewal to-day of yesterday's 
Chinese procession, but with a sequel. Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen 
visited Mr. Seward, and announced to him the success of their 
diplomatic labors in Europe, condoled with him on the death of 
Mr. Burlingame, thanked Mr. Seward over and over again for the 
aid they had received from him in their mission, and dwelt long 
and gratefully on the hospitalities which they had enjoyed in the 
United States. Mr. Seward inquired their lodgings, and expressed 
his intention of returning their visit. They thanked him, but 
insisted that he should not do so. They said, " We are living in a 
Chinese inn, in the old city. Neither the tavern nor the city is 
worthy or fit to receive you." When he persisted, they replied : 
"No, no, we will come to you here, but we are unable to entertain. 
Even when we were with you at Auburn, and you promised to 
come to China, Ave thought how unworthy we were to receive such 
a visit. Now, since we have compared so much that we have seen 
abroad with what we are at home, we know this better." 

It is a disappointment to 'us. What we want to do is to study 
China and Chinese ways. This study is the last one that can be 



FOREIGN" PREJUDICES. 101 

made among the foreign population of Shanghai. In that circle, 
Chinese affairs are generally ignored. With the exception of an 
occasional philanthropic observer, they talk in that society chiefly 
of French defeats and German victories, of London fashions, Oxford 
boat-races, and American inferiority to Europeans in diplomatic 
and consular etiquette. If they talk at all of China, it is against the 
Burlingame Treaty, with asseverations that it is an utter absurdity 
to expect any good thing to come out of China, except through 
blockade and bombardment. Possibly, this is an exaggeration 
resulting from the massacre at Tien-Tsin, and represents the tran- 
sient rather than the settled opinion of the foreign population. 
■ Happily this distrust of the Chinese does not affect or disturb 
trade. A large part of the coasting-trade of China is in foreign 
hands, and is conducted chiefly by the Shanghai Steam-Navigation 
Company. That company has built wharves one thousand feet 
long, which are covered with warehouses, here called "go -downs." 
From these wharves the company dispatches eighteen coastwise 
steamers, an average of one per day. These are chiefly American- 
built, and they enter all the treaty ports of the empire. How 
miserable the prejudices to which we have adverted seem to us, in 
view of the fact that this immense development of foreign naviga- 
tion and commerce is not only permitted by the Chinese Govern- 
ment, but is encouraged by it ! It seems the more unreasonable 
when we reflect that now, after more than twenty years of 
international intercourse, the United States have not one griev- 
ance against the Chinese Government unredressed, or one demand 
unsatisfied. 

It is pleasing to meet, here, " John Brown's soul marching on." 
At Mrs. Warden's ball, a colored man named Butler was received 
on a footing with the other guests. This ' Mr. Butler, who is 
equally modest and intelligent, is a native of Washington, and was 
born a slave of Commodore Rodgers, the father of the present 
admiral. He is here superintendent of the "go-downs," and 
charged with the entire freighting business of the Shanghai Steam- 
Navigation Company, receiving for his services a salary of four 
thousand dollars. 



102 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Steamship Shan Tung, October 22c?. — " Situated as we are and 
circumstanced as we are," it seems to us that we are out on a picnic, 
which, though it threatens to be long, promises much of interest. 
We have left Mr. and Mrs. Randall at Shanghai. At eleven o'clock 
last night, Mr. Warden, whom we have found as wise as lie is kind, 
drove us to the " Bund," where we were received by the aforesaid 
superintendent Butler, who had set ship and shore ablaze with an 
illumination of Chinese lanterns in honor of Mr. Seward. With 
this magnificent display, we were brought on board this pretty 
steamer which remains still attached to the wharf. It is one hun- 
dred and fifty feet long and twenty-four feet across the beam ; its 
state-rooms and cabins are more spacious than those usually found 
on our rivers and lakes at home, and we enjoyed in them a sounder 
sle3p last night than the excitement and hilarity at Shanghai had 
before allowed us. 

At six this morning — 

"The ship was cheered, 
The harbor cleared, 
Merrily did we drop — " 

down the river to Woosung, where a friendly summons from the 
Colorado brought us to, and Mr. Seward received her salute of 
fifteen guns. Under this friendly fire, Admiral Rodgers came on 
board the Shan Tung with an attendance of seven officers, a guard 
of twenty-seven marines, and the brass band of his flag-ship. With 
this gallant accession, we have crossed the bar at the mouth of the 
Yang-tse-kiang, here thirty miles wide, and are once more afloat 
on the Yellow Sea, bound for the now much-dreaded colder regions 
of the north. 

Taking up the Shanghai newspaper, we read the news of the 
overthrow of the Second Empire of France, and the establishment 
of a provisional government at Paris. 

Everybody asks Mr. Seward, "Will France now restore the 
Orleans dynasty, or. will it be the elder branch of the Bourbons? " 
He answers, " I think France will henceforth be a republic, not 
because the country is prepared for it, but because it has at last 



ON THE YELLOW SEA. 103 

both sufficiently tried and exploded monarchy and imperialism." 
" This," said one of our friends, " is a bold prophecy to make under 
the shadow of an empire which is five thousand years old, while the 



mffSWfK 1 . ' i 




MOUTH OF THE YANG-TSE-KI.VM, . 



republic is only an experiment of one hundred years in America 
and in Switzerland." He replied : " The first Napoleon predicted 
that, within fifty years, Europe would either be Cossack or repub- 
lican. Monarchies and empires are of the past. The republic is 
the institution of the present and future." 

"By the deep, twenty -four fathoms." Deep water this, though 
the waves still glisten with the yellow sands of the great river. 
The ship rocks, and we rest. 

Yellow Sea, Latitude 34° 30', Sunday, October 2od. — Although 
we certainly did lose one whole day on shipboard on the Pacific, 
and although it seems to us that we waste much time on shore, we 
find nevertheless, on counting the weeks, and measuring the dis- 
tances, that we are moving rapidly. Only last Sunday, we entered 
the Yellow Sea from Japan. To-day, after a week of observation 
and festivity at Shanghai, we have made one-third of our long 
10 



104 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

projected voyage to Tien-Tsin. Who can reckon on the seasons ? 
We came on board, prepared with furs and blankets, and shrinking 
. with fear of tempests. Nevertheless, the heavens are smiling, and 
the Yellow Sea is smooth as Owasco Lake. The band, perhaps 
because we are travelling in the hemisphere of the heathen, has 
brought no sacred music. Happily, it has not forgotten its lessons 
from the opera. So we were awakened and brought to the deck 
this morning by the " Dies Irse " chorus from " Faust." For even- 
ing we have stipulated for the prayer in " Der Freischiitz." Al- 
though we have no missionaries on board, we have come to regard 
Sunday at sea as a day of rest, even more privileged and happy 
than at home. We have offered from the deck thanks for our own 
preservation as grateful, and prayers for friends at home, we trust, 
as fervent, as those which may be made there to-day, "for per- 
sons going to sea." We have just passed the mouth of the 
Hoang-ho — the Yellow River — the second of the two great rivers 
of China. 

Steamer Shan Ttmg, October 24:th. — We rounded this morning 
the noble granite promontory Shan Tung, which is the most eastern 
landmark of China proper, and gives its name to one of the most 
extensive of the eighteen provinces which constitute the empire. It 
is the water-shed between the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee and the basin of 
the Yellow River. It is across the western end of this promontory 
that the Imperial Canal bears the exchanges of Southern and 
Central China with those of the metropolis and the outlying prov- 
inces of Mantchooria and Mongolia. Besides some fishermen's 
huts on the beach, we saw only one structure on the promontory, 
a Buddhist temple. The whole coast of the promontory is held 
sacred in China as pertaining to the birthplace of Confucius. 

The appearance of a troop of soldiers winding down the moun- 
tain-side reminded us that the Tien-Tsin massacre has been followed 
by profound apprehensions of foreign war. A lonely, basaltic rock 
towers above the sea at the foot of the promontory — a monument 
that the land once came there, and that the wasting ocean has cut 
it off. But this monument, like all those erected by human hands, 



vm 







CHINESE JUNKS. 



105 



is not destined to endure. It is already broken, and the sea is 
flowing through it. Fishing-smacks flock like gulls around the 
base of the promontory. 

The junk is an odd-looking affair. It lies low in the water. 
All its timbers are quaintly carved, and it is painted as gayly as if 
designed for a regatta. Practically speaking, it is a double-ender, 
and its awkwardly-rigged and ill-shapen rudder distinguishes it 






gss •- 




CHINESE FISHING-SMACK. 



from all other sea-craft which have been built since Noah's ark. 
On either side of the bow there is never wanting a huge eye. We 
asked a Chinese seaman the significance of that ornament. He 
promptly replied, " Junk no have eye, no can see ! " It is a re- 
markable coincidence that not only the boats but the houses of the 
Alaska Indians are furnished with eyes. Although China has 
never been a maritime power, and is not likely soon to become 



106 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

one, it has an internal navigation which lias never been and never 
can be equalled elsewhere. 

Personal coincidences thicken. This morning, one of the 
marines communicated to Admiral Poclgers, through the offices of 
William Freeman, that he was not unknown to Mr. Seward. The 
admiral promptly instituted an inquiry, which resulted in the 
marine's coming to the quarter-deck, and being recognized there 
by Mr. Seward as a soldier who served on the escort which attended 
him through Alaska last year, and that his knowledge of Mr. 
Seward had begun in his having been put on guard at his house in 
"Washington, on the night of the President's assassination. Need 
we say that he was glad to renew his acquaintance with one who 
had been a defender on two such memorable occasions % 

Steamer Shan Tung, October 26th. — Bearing westward from 
Shan Tung, we after some hours entered the harbor of Chee-foo, 
nearly surrounded by hills. Thus far we have seen nothing sub- 
lime, nor even any thing picturesque in China. The northern 
shores are only more pleasing than those about Shanghai, because 
they are slightly elevated and slightly undulating. Naked and 
barren at this season, one might well mistake the region about 
Chee-foo for the California coast. 

The United States war-steamer Benicia saluted us as we entered 
the harbor, and her officers came on board. Chee-foo is one of the 
last-opened ports of China. The foreign settlement numbers only 
one hundred. The native population is variously estimated at 
twenty-five thousand to eighty thousand. The agent of the Steam- 
Navigation Company received us on a well-constructed stone wharf, 
and has entertained us in the kindest manner. We have made 
an excursion in chairs to an eminence that overlooks the town 
and harbor, and found there a ruin, but were unable to deter- 
mine whether the structure was a temple, an observatory, or a 
watch-tower. Prom its dilapidated walls we counted two hundred 
vessels of all sorts and sizes anchored in the bay, although Chee-foo 
confines itself exclusively to the coast-trade. In this trade, pressed 
tea prepared for the Russian market in the form of bricks, and 



A STORM AT SEA. 107 

scarcely more nutritions, is the chief article. A large and delicious 
native grape cultivated here is highly esteemed in all the cities of 
China, but no wine is made. 

Descending the hill, we enjoyed the walk on the smooth sand- 
beach. Chee-foo is a summer resort of foreigners — the Newport 
of China. The bungaloos, however, are now vacant. One of them, 
which was built by a missionary, cost ten thousand dollars. 

The gentlemen of our party, having recovered their land-legs, 
and been furnished with stout native ponies, made a scrub-race on 
the beach. The admiral, " who carries weight for age," was dis- 
tanced by the consul-general. Our friends at home will be pleased 
to learn that the whole party furnished themselves here with pon- 
gees, suitable for wear in the tropics, at twenty-five cents a yard. 

We left Chee-foo at eight in the evening, and at eleven o'clock 
we " caught it." As we kept near the coast, the sea was shoal and 
sand-colored. A strong land-wind arose and blew the water into 
ridges thirty or forty feet high, and our course obliged us to travel 
continually in the trough. The wind increased to a gale, and the 
steamer rocked. How she did rock! Those two of our naval 
friends who were left in a condition to do any thing, declare that 
they counted twenty-four rollings of the steamer from one side to 
another in sixty seconds. It must be confessed, however, that 
Lieutenant Wheeler and Mr. Pillsbury are somewhat suspected of 
waggery. But it must also be remembered that, at the time they 
made this solemn declaration, they supposed themselves to be very 
nearly in articulo mortis. Only the admiral kept his feet, Mr. 
Seward, with feet braced, being lashed in his chair to strong iron 
stanchions at the centre of the middle deck. The ladies were 
packed, wedged, and wadded in their berths. u Admiral," asked 
Mr. Seward, " is this rolling and tumbling a customary experience 
of yours ? " " No," answered the admiral with not less than his 
usual gravity, " this vessel has a motion entirely unknown to me." 
" Captain," said Mr. Seward to the master of the Shan Tung," is 
this rolling a chronic habit of your ship ? " " No," replied the 
captain, " she only practises it in the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee." Most 
of the Colorado's marines, and all the musicians except two, were 



108 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

helpless. Nothing that was loose remained in place ; furniture, 
trunks, bags, and boxes, bundles of pongee and baskets of Chee-foo 
grapes, went sliding and jamming and punching, backward and 
forward, and every way, until our pretty dancing-room gave a 
heterogeneous clattering worse than a seance of the Davenport 
brothers. In all this noise, confusion, and danger, it may well be 
imagined there was no sleep at night, no breakfast in the morning, 
and no lunch at noon. The storm abated and the sea began to 
subside at three o'clock. At four, the good admiral required such 
of the musicians as were sound or convalescent, to play selections 
of Offenbach, by way of enticing sea-sick passengers from their 
state-rooms. But even "La Belle Helene" and "La Grande Du- 
chesse " alike failed in this sad and trying emergency. There was 
neither talking, nor dining, nor wining, until we dropped anchor 
at nine o'clock in the open roadstead of Taku. Here in that road- 
stead we are now, waiting for the tide to carry us over the bar at 
the mouth of the Pei-ho River. 

There is little show of commerce about us. As yet we see no 
land, and only a dozen vessels, like our own, riding at anchor. "We 
are having a first experience of cold. The mercury has fallen to 
50°. 

Ten o'clock. — "We have dined. The pilot has come on board. 
The musicians are playing their notes, and we are working up 
ours. "We hope that the dance which we have left for that purpose 
will keep on till the tide changes. 



CHAPTER Y. 

UP THE PEI-HO RIVER. 

Mouth of the Pei-ho. — Chinese Forts. — American Guns. — The Most Crooked and Mean 
of Rivers. — Chinese Dogs. — A Misunderstanding. — Captain Wang. — Our Flotilla. — 
The City of Tien-Tsin. — Aspect of the Country. — Our Boat Life. — Absence of Ani- 
mals. — A Messenger from Peking. — A Chinese Trader. — Tung-Chow. 

Pei-ho River, October 27th. — We passed the bar at three this 
morning, having only twelve feet water, while the Shan Tung 
draws twelve feet fonr inches. Thanks to the sandy bottom, we 
have come safely over. With the exception of our peeps into the 
native cities of Shanghai and Chee-foo, we have so far only seen 
Europe in China. , JSTow China and the Chinese have opened them- 
selves to us. Taku is the outer port of Tien-Tsin, and is forti- 
fied. Though the works are not remarkable for construction, they 
have proved very effective defences by reason of the marshes 
which prevent the near approach of an enemy. "We counted one 
hundred and fifty guns in position, some of which are of Amer- 
ican make. The forts seem not strongly garrisoned. It was im- 
possible for us to ascertain whether the wide-spread settlements 
through which we passed after crossing the bar, and which contain 
a population of half a million, are one great city, or a hundred or 
more busy villages. But we learn that, statistically regarded, Taku 
consists of three villages, Taku, Siku, and Sangku. A leading 
business is the trade in salt, which is made on the sea-shore, and 
deposited in large quantities on the banks of the rivers. The 
channel is crowded with junks, while only one, two,, or three for- 



110 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

eign vessels ascend or descend it daily. We might well know that 
we have attained a higher latitude. The dwelling-houses here are 
built, not of wood, but of adobe walls, with chimneys ; the streets 
as narrow as those of old Shanghai. As we advance up the river, 
we can distinguish farms, with spacious and comfortable dwellings 
and out-buildings. The Pei-ho seems the most crooked and mean 
of all rivers. Only such a people as the Chinese could have made 
such a stream a channel of continental commerce. It is about as 
wide in most places as our steamer is long. It flows over alluvial 
sands; the water is used for irrigating the flat plain. To us, who 
are novices here, the cultivation seems successful, and even marvel- 
lous ; nevertheless, we are informed that this is the most barren 
region of the empire. The cereals and vegetables are not different 
from those of New York and Pennsylvania, though more various. 
They have white, tulip-shaped cabbages, turnips of many kinds and 
sizes, peas, lentils, w T heat, Indian-corn, oats, millet, beans, lettuce, 
and onions ; occasionally rice, potatoes, and sweet-potatoes. 

Approaching Tien-Tsin, we find the old familiar obstruction of 
the " overslaugh " near Albany. The boat goes around every five 
minutes, and sometimes, at a bend in the river, suddenly converts 
itself into a bridge. It is doubtful whether we shall reach Tien- 
Tsin until another flood. To increase our discomfort, it began to 
rain at one o'clock at night, and it still pours, and the mercury in 
both thermometer and barometer is falling. 

Tien-Tsin, October 28th. — Persevering all night, through all 
obstacles, we reached and grappled "the Bund" of the foreign set- 
tlement at noon. Here steam-navigation ends. We must stop and 
see what next. Tien-Tsin seems worthy to be the entrepot of 
foreign commerce, as it is at the head of inland navigation. To 
estimate its trade, one has but to look at the flags of all nations on 
the merchantmen and men-of-war, in the crowded and contracted 
harbor. These flags were successively dipped and our own na- 
tional steamship, the Ashuelot, saluted us as we worked our way 
to the wharf. The French naval commander and the British and 
Russian consuls have already come on board with friendly greet- 



A MELANCHOLY NIGHT. 



Ill 



ings. The foreign settlement is small, but, contrasted with the 
native suburbs, makes a very respectable appearance. 

October 29th. — We have had a jar in our party. With dismal, 
cold weather, and with muddy streets on the land, we necessarily 
remain on board. 

A Strauss waltz, suggestive of a dance, was struck up by the 
band after dinner, probably at the request of the younger officers 
at the foot of the table. Reflecting on the excitement produced at 
this moment, not only in China, but throughout the world, by the 
recent massacre of Christians in this very place, Mr. Seward remon- 
strated against the festivity. The young people reluctantly acqui- 
esced, but they are consoled this morning by his admission that we 
had a noche triste. 

We have had a busy day. The gentlemen have secured a fleet 
of flat-bottomed sail-boats with crews, in all numbering one hun- 
dred men. All the party have been engaged in preparing stores 
and packing, intending to embark this evening Meanwhile, Mr. 
Seward, with the admiral, has been entertained with an inspection 
of the Ashuelot. 




CHINESE DOG3. 



112 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

The foreigners in China have not forgotten, among the humani- 
ties, their interest in the canine race. Dogs of every kind have 
come on board, as if appreciating the sympathies of civilization — 
the Newfoundland dog, the Australian hound, the Russian blood- 
hound, and the universal black-and-tan terrier; but, far prettier 
than all those very familiar friends, are a pair of spaniels, purely 
bred from Chinese stock, which have come in the staff of the Rus- 
sian consul-general. They are small, and of a pinkish-brown, 
without a black hair. There is a tradition that Charles I. received 
the progenitor of this race, in England, as a present from the Em- 
peror of China. It is that identical dog lying on the hearth-rug 
that Horace Walpole describes as a "plumy wreath." 

Ten o'clock at night. — 

" The best-laid schemes o' mice and men 
Gang oft aglee." 

The boats did not come to time. This afternoon a chair was 
provided for Mr. Seward, and a Mongolian pony for each one of 
the suite who chose. This animal, like our Canadian pony, has 
great strength and endurance. Supposing that the plan for the ex- 
cursion was fully understood by all, Mr. Seward went ashore and 
sat down in his chair, on "the Bund." At this moment, some one 
asked Mr. George F. Seward if he were going to ride. He an- 
swered, "No." On this, the inquirer informed Admiral Rodgers 
that Mr. Seward was engaged, and would not ride. The whole 
party at this moment galloped off, leaving Mr. Seward sitting in 
his chair, surrounded by his eight coolie bearers, not one of whom 
spake or understood a word of English. They waited for orders in 
Chinese, which, although Mr. Seward could give in English, there 
was no person to interpret. 

At the first turn in the road, the equestrians looked back for 
their chief. He was not there. Inquiry being made, the admiral 
answered that Mr. Seward was not coming out. This satisfied 
them for the time, but on further reflection a doubt arose whether 
he had so capriciously changed his purpose. So the whole party, 



THE PEI-HO SQUADEON. 113 

under apprehensions for his safety, returned on their track for a 
rescue. They found him at a distance of half a mile from the Bund, 
pressing on with his eight coolies and a mounted guide. After 
this fatix pas, we passed over a broad plain covered with crumbling 
tombs and neglected graves, and then came to a high outer wall, 
which stretches across from the Chinese city to the bank of the 
river. The wall was erected during the last combined British and 
French invasion. It is an earthwork with a narrow, shallow moat, 
a glacis twenty feet wide, and a frail parapet with frequent embra- 
sures, which impart to it an ornamental effect. The admiral says 
that the work would be of no use as a defence, but he has not a 
high estimate of Chinese military science. However that may 
be, the glacis furnished us a delightful ride, with beautiful vistas, 
through the parapets, across the bastions and under the crowning 
martello towers. 

The Chinese know as well how to utilize their temples as we 
know how to improve our churches for hospitals in time of war. 
Attracted by massive portals and high outer walls, we crossed the 
plain to examine a Buddhist temple, standing on a slight elevation 
and overlooking the river. We found it had been long ago con- 
verted into a powder-magazine. Certainly the place is a fitting 
one. Miles around it is one vast suburb of the dead. 

Adieu, Shan Tung, with your morning martial promenades, 
your recherche dinners, your quiet card-parties, your evening con- 
certs and balls, your rollings, your pitchings, and your groundings 
and your tumblings ! When shall we see another seaman like 
Captain Hawes? 

Hail to thee, flat-bottomed boat number four of the Pei-ho 
squadron, with your single main-sail, your four poles, and your one 
tow-rope ! Hail, Captain Wang, and your meek and patient four ! 
Whatever perils await us under your conduct, we are insured at 
least against a watery grave. 

Shall we describe the flotilla ? The admiral has numbered and 
registered the vessels, one, two, three, up to fifteen. They vary in 
dimensions, and, though coarsely, are all strongly built. Each has 
one cabin, less than five feet wide at the floor, and one raised bunk 



114 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



behind it for sleeping-room. It has cost some care to distribute 
among the boats a party so large and so very much mixed. Num- 
ber one leads. It bears the Stars and Stripes, and carries the 
United States consul-general, Mrs. Seward, and their Chinese ser- 
vants. Number two, without colors, bears the two other ladies ; 
and number three is the flag-ship of Admiral Eodgers, his secretary, 
and servants, and floats the national ensign taken from the Colorado. 
Number four, under a broader flag, carries Mr. Seward and the 




BOATS ON THE PEI-HO KIVEB. 



faithful Freeman. It is the largest ship in the fleet, thirty feet long, 
and twelve feet beam. Of the whole fleet, only number four has 
a stove, and this is borrowed from the Ashuelot. Its cabin, there- 
fore, is our writing-room. "Wang tells us this boat is an inheritance 
from his father, and has been in constant use fifty-four years. 
Number five carries Mr. Middleton and Mr. Rodman ; numbers 
seven and eight, officers of the admiral's staff; number nine, the 
dining-room of the party ; numbers ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, 



THE CITY OF TIEN-TSIK 115 

fourteen, and fifteen, have on board, the band, the marines, stores, 
and baggage. 

Each boat has its sunken cabin with a dark hold under the 
forward deck, which is occupied by the crew. The cabins are en- 
closed with upright slabs, removable at pleasure. They are old 
and full of crevices, and exclude neither the rain nor the cold. 
The boat has a single mast forward of the cabin and before the 
cabin-door, on which a small cotton sail is rigged with a single reef, 
upon a bamboo-spar. "When the wind does not serve, the boatmen 
resort to poles. When they grow tired of this, they betake them- 
selves to the banks, which are neither paved nor graded. Attach- 
ing the towing-line to the top of the mast, they make a loose knot 
on the other end, and throw it over their shoulders. Thus har- 
nessed, they draw the boat up the stream. Each boat has four 
coolies, and we pay for the whole voyage, including all the costs 
and charges, six dollars a day for each boat, if we travel only by 
daylight, and nine dollars if we travel day and night. 

Our naval friends have a mess-boat of their own ; the rest of 
the party use the dining-room. Of course, these parties entertain 
each other. The musicians and the marines are supplied with their 
navy -rations, and the coolies take care of themselves. 

We started with a fair wind this morning, and, as we passed 
the shipping, our band made the acknowledgments we owed to 
the foreign vessels, by playing first " Hail Columbia," then " God 
save the Queen," the Marseillaise Hymn, and all the other national 
anthems. The friendly ships and the consulates on shore lowered 
their flags, and gave us cheers and encouraging salutations. It 
was not doubtful that the gallant officers regarded our ascent to 
Peking, at this painful juncture, as an adventure not altogether 
free from danger. 

The serpentine voyage of three miles brought us to the Chinese 
city of Tien-Tsin, enclosed within a stone-wall forty feet high, sur- 
mounted with watch-towers, and four miles in circuit. Suburbs, 
densely inhabited, crowd the river on both sides. The population 
is stated to us here at a million and a half. Travellers generally 
estimate it at half a million. We may well accept the higher figure, 



116 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

for such a scene of crowded though silent activity we never saw. 
Except the charred walls, broken towers, and shattered battlements 
of the Roman Catholic cathedral and convent lately destroyed, 
there is not one massive or pretentious structure. Narrow streets 
divide monotonous blocks of one story and two story buildings. 
Every small space is filled with countless, moving multitudes. 
There is no ferry, but the bridge of boats is crowded with a mass 
of men and boys such as " Fulton Ferry " presents on a holiday. 
Chinese boats choke the channel. We thought we never should 
get through the town, but we did. We saw an army of ten thou- 
sand men, infantry and cavalry, enter the city as we passed the 
western gate. At a distance the array was imposing, but, as we 
neared it, we discovered a woful lack of uniformity, as well in dress 
as in arms and equipments. The infantry arm varied from a wooden 
club of three feet long, to a matchlock with a seven-foot barrel ; 
the music thoroughly discordant, but the yellow banners were fre- 
quent, gay, and gorgeous. The march was as straggling and dis- 
orderly as the return of the troops from Bull Run to Washington. 
It is notorious that, since the massacre, the Chinese have been 
gathering a large army at Tien-Tsin. Foreigners say it is a prep- 
aration for war ; Chinese official persons, on the contrary, assure 
us that it is a precaution against further outbreaks here. It is too 
early, however, for us to speak on this exciting topic. On the west 
side of Tien-Tsin, as on the east, the plain presents a vast and 
cheerless field of sepulture. Leaving this behind us, we come 
through cultivated fields, with vegetable-gardens hanging over the 
water's edge. Here we are planting our stakes and tying up for 
the night, in such order as the admiral directs. He has posted a 
guard around us. No one passes without giving the countersign, 
and each passing hour is called as the hushed night rolls on. It is 
cold, and we shrink into our cabins to meditate as we may on the 
strange scenes and men around us. 

On the Pei-ho, October 30th. — Thanks to our commissary who 
procured, and thanks to the generous friends at Tien-Tsin who 
lent us the blankets and furs, we have enjoyed a comfortable sleep 



AN ANCIENT PAVEMENT. 117 

in our most uncomfortable of boats. We waked in a drizzling 
rain, the thermometer at 38°. In such an atmosphere, comfort is 
impossible without exercise, which can only be obtained by" walk- 
ing on the slippery clay banks of the river, for, although it is a 
canal, it has no towing-path. The Imperial Canal, the greatest 
work of that kind in the world, leaves the Pei-ho at Tien-Tsin, 
crosses the Yellow River, and debouches into the Yang-tse-kiang, 
but it has lesser slack water and other contrivances, which extend 
the navigation to Canton. The Pei-ho Eiver at Tien-Tsin is navi- 
gated eighty miles to Tung-Chow, the appointed terminus of our 
present voyage, which is fifteen miles distant from Peking. 

The country is level and monotonous, but more sterile as we 
advance. Although the inhabitants are poor, they seem hardy, 
busy, and contented. There is no forest as far as the eye can reach, 
only a few poplars and willows, the natural products of an alluvial 
soil, kept as shade-trees. It is not easy to discover how the im- 
mense population procure the fuel necessary in so cold a climate. 
We bought coal, of an inferior quality, at a large price, at Tien- 
Tsin. Our coolies, in cooking, burn only dry stalks of Indian-corn. 

While puzzling ourselves over that problem, we discovered 
great rafts of timber which choke navigation. Where could this 
timber have come from % Could it have come down the stream ? 
If up the stream, where was it shipped % On inquiry, we learn 
that it is brought across the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee, from the Corean 
Peninsula. Forbidding as the way and the weather are, we have 
walked this afternoon many miles. Our promenade was arrested 
by a marsh which compelled us to make a short detour, and, at a 
distance of twenty rods from the bank of the river, we found, in the 
bed of the morass, a pavement forty feet wide and one hundred 
feet long, of square hewn granite blocks — the first ruin we have 
thus far seen in our journey. Who laid that pavement ? When 
and for what purpose ? Was it the bottom of an ancient canal % 
There were no other traces of such a structure. Losing the pave- 
ment as it disappeared under the surface, we climbed a knoll fifty 
rods beyond, and found there a perfectly artistic granite wall, 

enclosing a large area within which no edifice remains. At one 
11 



118 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

corner of the wall is an arched gateway half in ruins. Stumbling 
through this passage over broken bricks and stones, we entered the 
desolate court. Here we confronted a solid marble shaft, five feet 
wide and twenty feet high, standing upon the back of a huge 
tortoise of the same material, having the exact form and proportions 
of Nature, every line of the shell, body, and claws being executed 
with precision and skill. The middle of the shaft, on both sides, is 
covered with legends, while each border from top to bottom is 
crowded with mythical birds, serpents, and dragons, exquisitely 
chiselled. We concluded that a temple had once stood here, and 
that the pavement below had served as the grand approach. Why 
had it been suffered to fall into ruin \ Perhaps we may learn more 
as we go on. 

October 31s£, Thermometer 48° Fahrenheit. — We have made 
half our voyage. A range of mountains looms up before us in the 
west. What mountains? They must be the Altai range. We 
have described Mr. Seward's boat. Would not our friends at home 
like to know how nicely the ladies have fitted up theirs ? It is not, 
indeed, as magnificent as Cleopatra's barge, but there is no Antony 
on the shores. They have a carpet of gray goat r skins, and with 
superfluous scarlet blankets have extemporized a tapestry, which 
effectually covers the chinks, and excludes the wind. The dais, 
two feet high, which serves for a bed, has a drapery of purple and 
gray rugs. Their dressing-table., which is a portmanteau on end, 
is covered with a gay shawl, and a mirror four inches square, with 
a gilt-frame, borrowed from the Ashuelot, hangs above it. For 
sofas, they use trunks spread with a white Thibetian fur great- 
coat, which Mr. Seward has kindly contributed. The access to this 
elegant saloon, which is eight feet square, is not particularly con- 
venient — an aperture in the front, two feet square, with a descent 
of three feet, without steps or ladder. In going in one stoops and 
steps backward ; in coming out, one stoops, and is pulled upward. 
Our habit of travel is settled. The fleet moves, or is supposed to 
move, at dawn. We are served with hot tea and a biscuit, with the 
thermometer somewhere between freezing and 40°. We draw 



CHINESE AGRICULTURE. 



119 



water from the river, for the toilet, in preference to that which was 
frozen during the night in our pitchers. We make ourselves warm 
by a walk of two or three miles. In these walks, we stare and 
wonder at the uncouth ploughs, the awkward fanning-mills, and 




CHXSESE AGKICtTLTUEE. 



other rude farming implements, and the equally strange farm-houses 
and dwellings which we pass. 

What seems stranger than any thing else is the absence of 
domestic animals. Horses, cows, and oxen, are indeed sometimes 
seen at the plough, but generally the ground is worked with spade 
and hoe. ]STo wheeled vehicle, except rarely a cart, with a mean 



120 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

calash, drawn by a horse, a mule, or oxen, is seen. Forty sheep here 
are a fortune. Mr. Bergh's sensibilities would be sorely tried if he 
could see the burdens and labors imposed on the ass. The hogs are 
" black as the ace of spades," about as thin, and more scarce than 
pheasants. Sometimes we take one side of the river, and then 
cross to the other. Not unfrequently, by the intervention of head- 
land and promontory, we lose sight of our little fleet, or, finding it 
in disorder, mistake number two for number four, or the admiral's 
flag for the consul-general's. Coming in from these walks, we 
gather round Mr. Seward's little stove, read or write, and talk over 
the alarms of the night and the incidents of the morning. We 
breakfast at eleven, and dine at five. Our stores are chiefly foreign. 
As we neither know how to procure nor how to prepare the Chinese 
food, the commissariat gives us coifee from Mocha, sausages from 
Bologna, biscuit and porter from England, peas from France, sar- 
dines from Italy, cheese from Chautauqua, butter from Goshen, and 
oysters from Baltimore, with wines from all countries in the world, 
except China. Our boatmen, "heathen Chinee" though they are, 
have become devoted to us, and, when they see our long waiting 
for breakfast, they kindly offer to share with us their little menu 
of Indian-corn bread, wheaten fritters, and cabbage-soup. After 
dinner, we are weary enough to sink into our hard bunks, and cold 
enough to draw over us our furs. The boats tie up very punctually 
at ten o'clock, and it is by no means safe or pleasant to clamber 
over the decks from one to the other. 

November 1st. — The November which we have dreaded has 
met us here in China, just as it would probably have come down 
on us if we had remained at home. Its breath, often cold and 
clammy there, is no warmer or drier here. In four days we have 
had not one gleam of sunshine. We might well imagine ourselves 
on the St. Lawrence, so similar is the vegetation of this sandy plain. 
One beautiful feature, however, of the St. Lawrence is missing 
here. Instead of the gorgeous autumnal forest, we have only a few 
scattered leaves, and those pale-yellow or colorless. We have to- 
day added fifteen coolies to our marine. 



AT TUNG-CHOW. 121 

Mr. Seward's cabin has just taken fire, but Captain Wang and 
his crew quickly dropped their buckets into the river, and ex- 
tinguished the flame. Travellers who come after us may take 
notice that stoves on the Pei-ho are not only an expensive but a 
dangerous luxury. 

Tung- Chow ', November 2d. — At a distance of six miles, that is 
to say, a period of four hours, before the end of our voyage, a 
mounted messenger, coming from the United States minister and 
the Kussian minister at Peking, met us on the river with con- 
gratulations. In the middle of the dark, rainy night we became 
aware of our arrival at Tung-Chow by the noise of our tackle 
taking hold upon the bank. We saw nothing of this long-desired 
haven during the night, though the unintelligible jargon of a crowd 
which the great arrival attracted rendered sleep impossible. The 
sun at last relents. The scene this morning, though grotesque, is 
cheerful. The nocturnal crowd has swollen to a dense mass of 
men and boys, all wearing large, broad-brimmed straw hats clat- 
tering wooden-soled shoes, and thickly-padded and quilted blue 
blouses — all parts of the costume showing the effects of wear, and 
suggesting many changes in past ownership. They manifest in- 
tense curiosity to learn the secret of our large and imposing flotilla. 
As they peep and peer through every aperture and crevice of our 
boats, staring with narrow, wondering eyes at our strange costume 
and complexion, our toilet has not been made without difficulty. 
They are nevertheless quiet and respectful, and, whatever may be 
the motive, they seem desirous to please, to serve, and to oblige. 
Every manner of small traffic is going on among them. Bread, 
cabbages, and cakes, were sold or gambled for according to the taste 
of the customer. A " vagrom "-looking fellow flourishes a painted 
pasteboard quiver, and turns it upside down, and chopsticks fall 
from it instead of arrows. Combative sparrows and canaries chal- 
lenge each other through their cages, and a boy carries a pretty 
brown bird, smaller than the oriole or the mocking-bird, and which, 
seeming a reconciled captive, sings sweetly out a merry invitation 
to a gentle purchaser. 



122 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

The Pei-lio forms a basin thirty or forty yards wide, which is 
here crowded with little junks or boats, most of which are used for 
dwellings. The town stands on a terrace which rises gently from 
the river. There is no dock, wharf, or storehouse, on the bank be- 
tween the river and the terrace. The uncovered sewage of the city 
has worn the sloping bank into channels, and between these chan- 
nels are promiscuous deposits of merchandise and heaps of compost, 
all alike prepared for shipping. The houses on the terrace are low, 
but many of them have quite large courts. Their fronts are covered 
with fanciful sign-boards. At a bend of the river before us rises 
a lofty pagoda of seven stories; the first structure of this form 
which we have seen. "We wonder that it is not more extensively 
copied in the West, and especially why it is not adopted in place 
of our unshapely and cheerless light-house. The name pagoda is 
in common use, but dagoba is in use also. A distinction is made, 
however. When the structure is small^ and is enclosed in an area 
with a temple, it is called dagoba. On the other hand, when it 
stands by itself, its design is for ornament more than use ; it is 
then called pagoda. A learned Chinese authority tells us that 
every structure of the kind, whether pagoda or dagoba, contains 
relics of some saint or martyr. 

Say what men may, there is a power in gilded epaulets and 
buttons. Our naval friends, strong in that power, opened an easy 
way for us through the inquisitive multitude ; but, in climbing the 
slimy bank of the terrace, we encountered an obstacle which neither 
gold lace nor buttons could displace. This was a caravan of thirty 
laden camels, in single file, as they always move, just beginning 
their long journey over the steppes of Russia to Moscow. The 
imperturbable beasts, thickly covered with long, scraggy hair, trod 
firmly but slowly with their spreading, padded feet. Reaching a 
terrace, we were as yet only in a suburb. After many efforts, we 
were obliged to give up the exploration. Every street is a deep, 
broad gutter, now rendered impassable by mud and rain. \Ve re- 
turned to the front, and contented ourselves with looking into the 
dwellings and shops. The occupants were neatly dressed, seemed 
intelligent, came out of their doors, and saluted us, tendering 



A 'POLITE CHINESE. 123 

their hands and inviting ns to enter. One, quite distingue, bowed 
us, with a politeness that was irresistible, into a wide court, bor- 
dered by dwellings and shops. He indicated a knowledge that 
we are from the West by pointing to a Russian chart of Europe, 
hano-iiiff on the wall. On this we made a roua;h Mercator sketch 
of the globe. He at once marked on it the sites Tung-Chow, 
Moscow, and ISTew York. He served delicious tea, quickly prepared, 
with sugar crystallized into rock-candy to sweeten it, and Russian 
cigarettes. Then he showed us his money-scales, strings of cash, 
numerating balls,, bills of exchange, receipts, and books of account, 
all neatly and carefully arranged. He called in his. tidy and re- 
spectable assistants and clerks, and with special pride introduced to 
us his pretty son and heir of six years. We were bowed and 
" chin-chinned " by our host with his whole family and retinue, and 
then read on his sign-board inscriptions which told that the place 
is at once one of entertainment for travellers, and an agency for 
the sale of teas in the Russian trade. "We breakfasted in our naval 
dining-room on the river at eight. It is now eleven o'clock. 
Every thing has been brought ashore, and has been packed in carts 
and sedan-chairs. Ponies, mules, and donkeys, stand in formal 
array on the bank, for the whole party, which numbers forty-seven 
Americans, besides Chinese servants, drivers, waiters, and attend- 
ants. Captain Tilden, on horseback, and his tall marines mounted 
on low donkeys, make, it must be confessed, a rather ludicrous 
cavalry display, but perhaps not ineffective for China. We take 
our chairs for Peking. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ARRIVAL AT PEKING. 

Passing through Tung-Chow. — Good Behavior of the People. — The Road to Peking. — 
A Dangerous Highway. — Daniel Webster and John Adams. — A Review of Our 
Party. — A Grotesque Procession. — The Eastern Gate of Peking. — The Separation 
of the Party. — Anxiety for Mr. Seward. — In Woful Plight. — An Explanation. — 
Arrival at the U. S. Legation. 

Peking, November 3d. — The Government at Peking, apprised 
of Mr. Seward's coming, had sent forward two intelligent mandarins 
to attend him to the capital. These officers at Tung-Chow sent up 
a messenger to report the array and progress of the party, in order 
that arrangements might be made for its safe and proper entrance 
into the city. 

What could be more gratifying to our national and personal 
pride than the prospect, thus opened to us, of a hind and dis- 
tinguished reception % We took our way up the shelving levee, but 
without a road or path. We went a long distance down and across 
the ditches, which teemed with noxious vapors arising from the 
vegetable merchandise and offal of the city. At length our man- 
darins brought us up from the river's edge into bustling lanes, 
varying from five to twelve feet wide. The population gathered 
to see a procession so unique, and probably to them imposing. 
After a full half-mile, we descended into a broad ditch, filled with 
water reekingly offensive — a treacherous path for pedestrians, but 
Chinese chair-bearers, like Chinese beasts, are sure footed. We 
passed through an arch, under a high wall, which stands on the 



ADAMS AND WEBSTER. 125 

bank of a moat. We should have thought that we were now leav- 
ing the city instead of entering it, if the ditch had been on the 
inner side of the wall. The city contains within the walls not less 
than eighty thousand inhabitants. Hours must have been spent in 
getting through it, had not a military or municipal force met us at 
the gates and cleared the way. The streets were lanes, the houses 
low, cheap, and closely crowded together, as at Tien-Tsin. Our 
experience, however, in passing, was particularly pleasing. The 
people betrayed nothing of the hate and jealousy which are ascribed 
to the Chinese by the Europeans in the open ports. "Whether they 
understood Mr. Seward's public character, or were impressed by 
his white hair, white Thibetian great-coat, and black Thibetian cap, 
we do not know, but the entire population, young and old, saluted 
him, as he passed, with unmistakable signs of veneration. Emerg- 
ing from the farther gate, we came on the direct road to Peking, 
distant, some say, twenty-five miles, others say twelve miles. This 
road, built three hundred years ago, is an embankment forty feet 
wide, and twenty feet above the plain, which is always subject to 
inundation. The whole width has been paved with hewn granite 
blocks four or five feet long, two feet wide, and eight inches thick. 
These blocks were originally jointed closely and fastened with iron 
clamps, so as to leave no crevice or unevenness of surface, but the 
elements have long since deranged and dislocated the pavement, so 
that it cannot be travelled now either by wheeled vehicles or animals 
with comfort and safety. The horsemen and carts prefer to flounder 
through the sands and mud of the plains below, rather than to try 
this dangerous highway. 

" Admiral Eodgers," said Mr. Seward, as they kept their chairs 
side by side on this road, " did you ever hear of the interview of 
Mr. Webster with John Adams, the day before his death \ " " No." 
" Mr. Webster said to the old statesman, ' How do you do, this morn- 
ing, Mr. Adams \ ' ' Not very well,' he replied ; ' I am living in 
a very old house, Mr. Webster, and, from all that I can learn, the 
landlord does not intend to repair.' " So," continued Mr. Seward, 
" this road gives me a more painful impression than any thing else 
I have seen in China — it shows that the Government has no inten- 



126 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

tion to repair." The road might be restored as perfectly as before, 
simply by reversing the blocks, and bringing them together face 
downward. A clear field now allowed us to take a review and cen- 
sus of our party. The advance-guard consisted of twelve Chinese 
infantry. They wore metallic caps in the shape of Mambrino's 
helmet, torn by the hand of Don Quixote from the head of the 
caitiff barber ; the caps fastened by long, yellow tassels. Their 
uniform consisted of blue nankeen trousers and tunics, on the back 
of which was a white circular ground, bearing the inscription in 
large, black Chinese characters, " Yalor." Next came, or, rather, 
tried to come, a guard of twelve United States marines on foot, but 
the nimble-footed chair-bearers crowded so closely on them that the 
entire body took refuge in the rear. Next followed the four chairs 
of Mr. Seward, the admiral, and the ladies, with a mounted escort 
composed of the gentlemen of the party, civil and military. Then 
the musicians and seamen mounted promiscuously on horses, mules, 
and donkeys. The sailors found it equally difficult to keep their 
seats on the ponies, and their feet above-ground, when riding the 
donkeys. We could not count the baggage-carts, which, under the 
care of William Freeman, and the protection of a guard of marines, 
brought up the rear. Having prudently determined not to shock 
the sensibility of the Chinese by any display of banners or musical 
instruments, we came along quietly without accident or incident, 
until, at a distance of a few miles from Peking, we rose upon 
the fine arched bridge of Palikao, where the battle memorable in 
the war of the allies against China was fought, and in which the 
lately-dismissed War Minister of France gained his title. Here 
the native guard halted and ranged themselves at the side of our 
cortege, presented arms, and, taking respectful leave of Mr. Seward, 
returned to Tung-Chow. 

When we had passed the bridge, the sedan-chair occupants, as 
well as the horsemen, were seized with a mutual desire for change. 
The success of either party was not brilliant. The chair-riders, 
victims of misplaced confidence, tumbled over the heads of the 
donkeys, and the cruppers of the mules ; the mounted party spilled 
out of the chairs. The country through which we passed shows 



A CHINESE FUNERAL. 127 

less a neglect of cultivation than a dilapidation of estates. Half- 
way on the road, we met a grotesque procession. First, came a 
band of thirty or forty boys, dressed in scarlet and yellow,- whom 
we might have mistaken for clowns, bearing staves with fantastic 
badges of authority. Next, a band of musicians, displaying equal 
luxury of color, banged and drummed on instruments unlike any 
thing we had ever seen. Then came an enormous catafalque, 
pagoda-shaped, mounted on wheels whose axles just escaped the 
ground, the exterior covered with scarlet cloth, richly trimmed with 
gold lace. "Within was an elaborately-carved coffin. The vehicle 
was rolled forward on the rough road by eighty bare-legged coolies. 
The rank of the dead determines the number of such bearers. 
Preceding the car was a mournfully-dressed, sad-looking little 
woman, holding up before her a large, painted wooden doll. This 
figure represents the wife of the deceased, and is to be buried in the 
grave with him, as her proxy. The procession showed to us more 
courtesy than funeral-processions ever show at home — it opened 
and halted to allow the chairs to pass. 

At last, after five hours' tedious and painful travel from Tung- 
Chow, we obtained a full view of the great Eastern Gate of Peking, 
rising above monotonous suburbs, not unlike those of Tung-Chow. 
Here the pathway on the plain below the embankment was a 
smooth, dry sand. How could Miss Seward resist the temptation 
to exchange her chair for a fine Arabian horse, which Mr. Low, -the 
United States minister, had sent down, and so make the entry into 
the Chinese capital in a suitable manner? The ride was exhila- 
rating, and perhaps excited the envy of the less fortunate members 
of the party. She was attended by two friends, one gentleman 
on horseback and another on a donkey. The procession reached 
the suburbs in tolerable order, but here the amusement of the 
journey ended, and its difficulties and sorrows began. The worn- 
out paved road, instead of keeping high and dry on the embank- 
ment, sank fifteen feet below the level of the streets. It had been 
raining continuously in Peking for three weeks, and the sunken 
road-bed was covered with mud knee-deep. Yillanous Chinese 
carts, going both ways, cro wded the entire path, obliging not only 



12S JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

the chairs, but the equestrians and pedestrians of the party, horses, 
mules, donkeys, and all, to pick and find their way on the broken, 
shelving, furrowed, crowded and every way obstructed bank, be- 
tween the houses and the road-bed. 

We do not know how nor where the little mounted party last 
mentioned fell under the guidance of a mute Chinaman on a strong, 
fast horse. Pointing, however, to his red cap, either as a mark 
for them to follow, or as a badge of his authority, he hastened them 
forward and onward. Only for a short time they saw their friends 
in the chairs coming on, but falling more and more behind. They 
passed under the great Eastern Gate, too much terrified to study 
its architecture. They turned into a narrow lane, then by a zigzag 
movement into another, at times crossing broader streets which 
were obstructed with carts, booths, merchandise, and theatres ; 
then again into lanes, dark, deserted, and ruinous. If any one can 
conceive an obstruction not described, it may be brought into this 
picture. Now they climbed steep, slippery embankments, dashing 
and splashing against stone posts, sign-boards, and booths, scatter- 
ing angry passengers, then pitching into nauseous, muddy pits. 
They not only lost all idea of courses and distances, but also lost 
sight of our whole column, and were effectually lost by them. It 
required intense and watchful effort to keep the saddle. What 
could all this mean ? "Was the mute Chinese guide a decoy, lead- 
ing 'into an ambush? What could be the motive in bringing a 
stranger and a woman there ? If not a decoy, why were they led by 
a course so blind and tortuous ? Why were they separated from Mr. 
Seward and our gallant defenders? Perplexed with anxiety for 
themselves, and even greater anxiety for Mr. Seward and his friends, 
they halted and beckoned to the red-capped conductor for a parley. 
Mr. Middleton rode back as nearly as he could over the way he had 
come, in search of " our absent friends." He rejoined them after a 
period which seemed an age, and reported that Mr. Seward, nor 
the admiral, nor man nor woman, nor beast nor baggage, nor any 
other thing belonging to the party, could be found. Meantime 
crowds, which their imagination swelled to the entire population of 
the city, gathered around them in that wofal plight. Well might 



A DISAGREE ABLE RIDE. 129 

they be " in wonder at their case, and be perplexed at their condi- 
tion," for, as the Arab historian says, " their state was wonderful, 
and their case was extraordinary." Among all these crowds there 
was not one woman, nor was there a man or boy, who gave one 
cheering or encouraging or sympathizing word, glance, or sign. 
The mute signed to move on. Manifestly, any place was safer 
than this. Only two subsequent incidents of that distracted ride 
are remembered : the first, that in a narrow street they encountered 
a train of loaded camels as long as that we had seen in the morn- 
ing at Tung-Chow. These would move neither forward nor back- 
ward, nor give room on the right or on the left to let them pass. 
They grazed alternately the walls and the beasts, and it is even now 
a wonder how they escaped being dismounted and trodden under 
foot. The other incident was a momentary glimpse of a stately 
temple, which, with blue porcelain roof and gilded dome, towered 
high above an unbroken expanse of low, mean, and vulgar dwell- 
ings, only varied by intervening heaps of ruins. They then plunged, 
as it seemed, deeper than before into miry pits and squalid masses, 
now only anxious not to lose sight of the red cap of the mysterious 
cicerone, far in advance, and at the same time listening to catch 
the notes of the tinkling bells for reassurance that their donkey- 
mounted companion was not lost. At last, and all at once, they 
turned a high wall, and entered through a substantial gate-way a 
spacious open court, over which was waving the constellation of 
thirty-seven stars and its thirteen red-and- white stripes. Their grati- 
tude was even greater than their surprise at finding Mr. Seward and 
Miss Risley already at the legation. His adventurous journey, as 
he described it, had been even more perplexing than theirs. Sepa- 
rated from them and from the rest of the party, he, like them, had 
at once lost all knowledge of both, not knowing that he had any 
guide except the two mandarins who had accompanied us from 
Tien-Tsin, and who now trod along side of his chair, as he was con- 
veyed by a route entirely different from those which had been taken 
by the other portions of the party, and equally narrow, obstructed, 
and dangerous. At times, he jostled against camel-caravans ; at 
other times, against motley, hurrying crowds; now crossing a 



130 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN" CHINA. 

muddy moat, then scaling the slippery glacis of a frowning bastion, 
he occasionally had a glimpse of the admiral's chair, or Miss Ris- 
ley's, or of a mounted marine or musician, but these invariably 
crossed his track, or were going in an opposite direction. He had 
his thoughts and his anxieties. He now said he could never for- 
give the admiral, or the naval officers, or the consul-general,* who 
had suffered our carefully-organized and well-armed procession to 
be broken into fragments, and scattered through the lanes, alleys, 
and ditches of the semi-barbarian city. "While we were exchanging 
these explanations, the remaining fragments of the party, civilians, 
officers, marines, and baggage, not forgetting trusty Freeman, more 
frightened than all, came so rapidly with their chairs, horses, mules, 
and donkeys, into the court-yard, that the arrival seemed almost 
simultaneous, as it certainly was of one accord. 

We soon found out, but not without much inquiry, how it had 
come to pass that our entrance into the capital, contrary to our ex- 
pectation, was so irregular and disorderly. The Chinese Govern- 
ment is at this moment profoundly anxious to prevent a renewal 
of the popular commotions which have recently culminated in the 
tragedy of Tien-Tsin. They had been informed, by the messenger 
whom the mandarins dispatched from Tung-Chow, of the construc- 
tion and organization of our party. They had stipulated with Mr. 
Low that our band should not play along the road, or in the streets 
of Peking. They had, moreover, cautiously sent forward a compe- 
tent number of mounted guides, wearing red caps, with instruc- 
tions to break up our formidable procession at the Eastern Gate, 
and to conduct each portion by a different route through the most 
quiet and obscure parts of the city, to meet ouly at the legation. 

Mr. Seward now declined, with many thanks, the invitation of 
the Russian minister, received before he left home, and we became 
guests of Mr. Low, who, with true Californian hospitality, would 
allow no member of the party to find a home outside of the lega- 
tion. Wearied by the tedious boat-journey from Tien-Tsin, and 
the fatigues and anxieties of our grand entry into the Chinese capi- 
tal, we unanimously waived the wassail, wine, and music, offered 
us at the legation, and retired to an early rest. 



CHAPTER VII. 

RESIDENCE IN PEKING. 

Aspect of Peking. — Walk on the Wall. — The Foreign Population of Peking. — Two Amer- 
ican Chinese. — Native Wares. — The Foreign Ministers. — The Russian Minister. — 
The British Legation. — Influence of the United States. — The Hall of Science. — Mr. 
Seward's Audience with the Imperial Cabinet. — A Ladies' Day. — Chinese Ladies. — 
A Chinese Mansion. 

Peking, November 4cth. — The legation is the spacious and com- 
fortable dwelling which was built by the eminent Dr. Williams, so 
long secretary and interpreter, and not imfrequently charge. It 
was occupied by Mr. Burlingame, and Mr. Seward now agrees that 
it would have been wise, when it was practicable, to have purchased 
it for the United States Government. There neither is in Peking, 
nor any other place, a building so suitable, nor could one be more 
economically built. 

After the relation of our experience in entering the city, we 
need say little of the general aspect of Peking. The population 
is about one million. Differing from other Chinese cities, its 
streets are broad enough, but dilapidation and ruin mar the scenes 
of highest activity, while the roadways are everywhere full of ob- 
structions, always ill-looking, and sometimes nauseous and dis- 
gusting. There are no sidewalks — seldom a pavement. "With the 
exception of an occasional private lantern, there are no lights. 
Many of the narrow streets are rendered impassable by upright 
stone posts, set irregularly in the street for the very purpose of 
preventing intrusion or passage. Except in the imperial grounds, 



132 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

there are no gardens and no fountains, statues, or other monuments 
— only compact masses of dwellings and shops, low, old, and mean. 
The weather is cold, damp, and dark. A visit from General 
Ylangally has been the incident of the day. The prevailing agita- 
tion resulting from the Tien-Tsin massacre is the chief subject of 
conversation. Mr. Warden, at Shanghai, and Mr. Low and Dr. 
Williams, here, appear to be almost the only persons in China who 
take a rational and statesmanlike view of the political situation. 
" We must take a walk to see the city," says Mr. Seward. " There 
is no walk in the city," answers General Ylangally, "except on 
the city wall." " Very well," replies Mr. Seward, " then let us 
walk on the city wall." 

Peking, November 4, 1870. — So here we are — on the city wall — 
not the outer wall, nor yet the innermost wall, but on an interior 
wall which divides the city of the Tartar conquerors from the Chi- 
nese city, and at the same time looks over the innermost wall which 
encloses the city where the emperor resides, which is therefore called 
the " sacred " city. We have reached this commanding eminence 
just at the hour when the morning sun is lighting up the snow- 
clad mountains which bound the valley of the Pei-ho in the west. 
It is cold, but, with furs elsewhere superfluous, and exercise quite 
unusual, we can bear it. The legation, where we reside, opens on 
the bank of the now dry moat, which lies at the foot of the wall. 
The wall is thirty feet high. We have walked several miles on 
this elevation, looking down from the parapets on the scene around 
us, and have wondered at the numerous gates, all lofty, massive, 
and grand ; have counted the thousand towers, bastions, and ram- 
parts ; surveyed the walls of the outer and inner cities ; have con- 
templated their watch-towers, garrisons, and arsenals ; and have 
shrunk back from an estimate of the number of the gilded palaces 
and temples. If we remember, we recorded yesterday, before 
coming up hither, that Peking is a most unsightly and wretched 
city. It seems to us now, although walled cities are unfamiliar to 
our experience, that Peking is the only city, we have ever seen, 
sufficiently majestic to be a seat of empire. 



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ARTISTIC IMPOSTURE. 133 

True, these walls, built six hundred years ago, have failed to 
protect Peking against the allied forces of Great Britain and 
France, and they are confessedly useless for a defence in the mod- 
ern system of warfare. But, like all the castellated and ecclesiasti- 
cal structures of the middle ages, they are sublime and impressive. 
True, even outer walls cramp the growth of cities, while interior 
partitions and subdivisions must have an unwholesome effect and 
be otherwise intolerable. But the castellated walls of the middle 
ages are none the less imposing for all this. The walls of Peking 
address themselves no longer to the reason, but to the imagina- 
tion. No Chinaman, unless in military or civil employ, and no 
Chinese woman under any circumstances, is allowed to go upon the 
walls. Why do a people so jealous allow foreigners this privilege \ 
It is allowed because they insist upon it. Could there be a 
stronger evidence that China wearies and gives way before the 
ever-increasing importunity and exaction of the Western nations ? 
We now recall the fact that it was stated by Mr. Burlingame, at 
Auburn, that this concession was first made to himself and Sir 
Frederick Bruce. 

Unhappily, a closer inspection of the wall and its accessories 
enables us to see that much of its impressive effect is derived from 
artistic imposture. Arsenals, capacious enough for the ordnance 
of the Washington Navy -Yard, contain only a few awkwardly- 
mounted guns. Painted cannons in the embrasures are substituted 
for real guns. 

In China the national flag is never seen singly. There are 
always double flag-staffs. Each gate-way has a rampart to pre- 
vent the direct approach of an enemy. The wall is an earthen 
embankment twenty-five feet thick at the base, the outer face 
covered with large, hard, gray bricks, easily mistaken for hewn 
stone. During the day the gates are wide open, and there is an 
indiscriminate commingling of the populations of the Tartar and 
the Chinese cities, undistinguishable at least by strangers. Yet 
such is the power of habitual jealousy that the gates are peremp- 
torily and absolutely closed from sunset until sunrise. A denizen 
of one city left in the other at the closing must remain until morn- 



134 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

ing. We look down easily into the interior city, the residence of 
the emperor, and therefore " the Prohibited." Its gates, like the 
others, are open during the day, but they are carefully guarded, 
and none but the privileged residents are allowed to enter, except 
by special order. The palaces bear no resemblance in form or 
structure to the royal dwellings of the West. They are spacious, 
and, being covered with yellow tiled roofs, and elsewhere showing 
a commingling of light yellow and green, they have an appearance 
of newness or recent repair which is in strong contrast with the 
outer city. The " Prohibited City " is divided by a wall into two 
areas. In one of these the emperor resides with his family, while 
the other is open to the ministers of state. We may have an 
opportunity to look more closely into this latter area. 

The brick facing of all these walls is giving way. The culverts 
under them, besides many parts of the fortifications, are dilapi- 
dated, and the moat is either altogether dry or only partially filled 
with stagnant pools. 

We have come down from the walls. What is the foreign 
population of Peking ? Did you say five thousand ? Two thou- 
sand 1 One thousand ? It is only two hundred — diplomatic min- 
isters, clerks, attaches and retainers, and missionary ministers, all 
told. Mr. Seward has held an audience of the whole to-day. Each 
legation occupies a closed area, a "compound" assigned by the 
Government for that purpose. Only a narrow lane divides the 
legation of the United States from that of Russia. 

Two Chinese were announced this morning. They came in 
very costly native attire, shaven, wearing the pig-tail, and their 
feet cased in white-soled mandarin boots. To our surprise, they 
accosted Mr. Seward in English, calling his recollection to an 
acquaintance with him in the State Department at Washington. 
Surprised at this, he excitedly asked, how and where they had 
learned the English language so well. "Is it possible," they 
answered, "that you mistake us for Chinese? We are your own 
countrymen, and you saw us in service when you visited Fort 
Corcoran on Arlington Heights." These two officers have with 
great adroitness been engaged by an American mercantile house in 



NATIVE TKADEKS. 135 

China to acquire the mandarin language, to enable them to act as 
agents in trade. On arriving at Peking for that purpose, they 
assumed the Chinese habit, and, abandoning for the time all foreign 
society, they confined themselves exclusively to Chinese inns and 
Chinese society. They say they have done this with so much 
success that they have never been detected by the natives, except 
when surprised in making their toilet. The natives they meet 
with often say that their Chinese is imperfect, but they suppose 
it to be a dialect of Thibet or some distant province of the empire. 
Of course, we must not disclose their names. 

Our band of music, having been released from its durance, has 
played for every foreign minister, who came to visit us, the na- 
tional air of his own country. It has cheered us at lunch, and 
awakened the echoes at the elegant dinner given us at the Russian 
legation, and it ended by giving the spirited dancing-music for the 
soiree with which the day has closed. It is the first foreign band 
of music that has ever come in time of peace to Peking. The nov- 
elty attracts native crowds, but excites no ill temper. 

Peking, November 5th. — Deep concern this morning at finding 
the earth covered with snow, seeming to demand an early depart- 
ure southward. The morning was spent in studying and cheapen- 
ing the wares brought by native mer- 
chants, and spread over all the floors 
of the legation — bronzes, porcelain, 
jasper, jade, amethysts, and emeralds, 
wrought into the most curious shapes 
— sea-otter, sable, Thibetian goat, As- 
trakhan, wolf, white fox, red . fox, bear, 
panther, and tiger skins. We shall not report our bargains, 
further than that we bought a lapis-lazuli cat for two dollars, for 
which the merchant's first price was twenty-five dollars, and that 
Mr. Seward retired in disgust from the trade when his offer of five 
dollars was taken up for a lignum-vitse box, for which the vender 
had all day demanded fifty dollars. As far as the furs are con- 
cerned, our friends at home, to whom we send the purchases, will 




LArlS-LAZTJLI CAT. 



130 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

judge. Let this detail serve as an instruction that, as tea is the 
staple vegetable production in China, so furs are the great import 
of Peking. It . is the central market for the northern regions of 
the continent. 

It is remarkable that, while the ancient civilization of China 
favored perfection in the use of the loom and the needle in the 
manufacture of silk, cotton, and embroidery, it seems not to have 
brought into use either the loom or the needle in the manufacture 
of woollen fabrics. The want of woollen clothes in the winter, 
among the poorer classes, is supplied by cotton and silk, wadded 
and quilted. Such garments admit of no washing and little change. 
The class a little higher clothe themselves in dried sheep-skins 
with the wool on ; but every person, who can afford the luxury, 
dresses in fur — the richer the person, the more elegant and costly 
his robes of sable. Siberia sends her furs to Peking, and so does 
Alaska. The Tartars and Russians, after the Chinese, are the 
largest purchasers. 

November 5th. — Peking wears everywhere the aspect of a 
political rather than a commercial capital. Revolution has not 
worked out here any such political, social, or military changes as 
at Yeddo. It is the residence of idle, profitless, perhaps often 
profligate retainers of the Government. 

November 6th. — A correspondence much more intimate than 
is generally understood exists between the several cabinets of 
the world. By international usage, the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs at any capital is the head, or, as our Hibernian friends 
would express it, the "head centre" of the diplomatic body there. 
Mr. Seward having occupied that position at "Washington, the 
magic ring readily opens to him, wherever we go. The circle at 
Peking is rather a contracted one just now. The Russian minister 
is doyen. Distinguished by military service in the Crimea, he is 
a discreet, modest, and intelligent gentleman, and is understood to 
exercise very considerable influence over the Chinese cabinet, 
while he enjoys the respect and confidence of his colleagues. The 



THE FOREIGN MINISTERS. 137 

Russian legation has a spacious, costly, and elegant residence, and 
an imposing personnel. Besides four secretaries and a surgeon, it 
maintains a Greek chapel, open to native converts, and a Cossack 
guard, with extensive stables. The German legation has more 
moderate appointments. The minister, Baron Rehfues, is respected 
for his large experience. The British representative, Sir Ruther- 
ford Alcock, is absent. His place is filled by Mr. Wade, against 
whom there is a universal outcry, among the foreigners in China, 
for his supposed tameness in regard to the matter of the Tien- 
Tsin catastrophe. He is, nevertheless, a wise, learned, prudent, 
and practical minister. Mrs. Wade, a daughter of Sir John Her- 
schel, is very intellectual, liberal in her opinions, and earnest 
in her admiration of American institutions. During the social 
banishment she has endured here, she has successfully acquired 
the difficult mandarin dialect. The British Government is lavish 
toward its legation. The residence was purchased at large expense 
from one of the imperial princes, and repaired last year at a cost 
of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. The legation 
maintains a chapel, four secretaries, six diplomatic pupils, and a 
strong military guard. The French legation has Count Rochefort 
acting as charge d'affaires. Far less discreet than our excellent 
friend Berthemy, or his predecessor, De Montholon, who were so 
acceptable in the United States, Rochefort has proved himself 
vehement, impetuous, impracticable, and inconstant in his reclama- 
tions on the occasion of the massacre of the French consul and 
nuns at Tien-Tsin, while the military disasters which have just 
overtaken France at home have rendered her representative here 
powerless. The Danish and Belgian missions are only occasional, 
and little more than nominal. Their incumbents are accredited to 
Japan as well as to China. The Dane took leave of us at Yeddo, 
to repair to Peking before us, but has not yet arrived. Mr. Low, 
the United States minister, is a very able man, of much equa- 
nimity, enjoying equally the confidence of the Chinese Govern- 
ment and that of the diplomatic corps. The appointments of this 
legation, like those of the United States elsewhere, are moderate. 
Frederick the Great hardly practised greater parsimony in foreign 



138 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

diplomacy than our Government does. Mr. Low has neither 
chapel, nor surgeon, nor official dwelling-house. He has one 
secretary, who is also his interpreter, and no guards. Here, as 
in Japan, we hear our countrymen lament an alleged inferiority 
of our national importance and influence. They complain con- 
tinually of Russian ascendency at Peking, as they do of British 
ascendency at Yeddo. The grievance in each case is exagger- 
ated. The archives at Washington show that Mr. Burlingame, 
during his residence here, exerted a greater influence in China 
than any or all of his colleagues. Nor has Mr. Low lost any 
of this prestige. So also Mr. Townsend Harris, Mr. Pruyn, and 
Mr. Yan Valkenburgh, as well as Mr. De Long, have not been 
surpassed in consideration and usefulness by foreign representa- 
tives in Japan. Nevertheless, the influence of the United States 
in either country is far less distinguishable in the shaping of meas- 
ures of local administration than that of Russia or that of Great 
Britain. There is sufficient reason for this, without derogating 
from the prestige of the United States. They are a distinct nation. 
They appear in China, as they do in Japan, in the character of a 
just and magnanimous power. They offer little but equality and 
fairness in political, commercial, and social intercourse, and they 
demand no advantages that are not equally conceded to all other 
powers. Russia, on the contrary, is not only a near neighbor of 
China, but a colossal one. The commercial and political relations 
existing between them are various and intimate. The populations 
of the border provinces of the two empires have a close assimila- 
tion. Moreover, Russia advances nearer to China every day with 
her railroads, diligence-lines, and telegraph. The Chinese know 
that, while the friendship of Russia is invaluable, she may never- 
theless prove a powerful, if not fatal enemy. 

The prestige of Great Britain throughout the world, even on 
the European Continent, is derived chiefly from the dominion and 
the influence she wields in the East, and the commerce which re- 
sults. This commerce, again, is the essential support of the manu- 
factures which are the basis of the prosperity of the English people. 
Great Britain, therefore, wisely spares no care and no cost in main- 



THE HALL OF SCIENCE. 



139 



taming not only a diplomatic force, but a naval predominance, in 
tlie East. India, China, and Japan, are her proper theatre. In 
this great national policy she necessarily encounters rivalry and 
resistance. She has appeared in China more than once as an 
enemy, and proved her power, as well to destroy as to protect 
and save. It suits her interest to be here now as a magnanimous 
friend, like the United States. Long may the two nations remain 
in that accord ! 

November 1th. — ¥e have just come from a visit to the for- 
lorn " Hall of Science." The Church of Kome has been perse- 



iPSi 




ANCIENT OBSERVATORY, OP. HALL OF SCIENCE. 



vering in its attempts to Christianize China, but has left there, 
thus far, only monuments of its failure. One of them is the Ob- 
servatory, otherwise called the " Hall of Science." The great 
Protestant Reformation in Europe was, as every one knows, fol- 
lowed by a hardly less remarkable reaction and revival of the 
Eoman Catholic Church originating in the inspiration of Ignatius 



140 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Loyola, and conducted chiefly by the Society of Jesus which he 
founded. In 1680, the Emperor Kang-Hi erected on the wall 
of the Tartar city an observatory, committing its construction and 
•superintendence to Jesuit professors, with a munificent endowment. 
They procured in Paris, Venice, Genoa, and London, bronze astro- 
nomical instruments, the most perfect that science had at that time 
suggested, and of stupendous magnitude and magnificent execution. 
These instruments, set up in the open air, and thus exposed with- 
out any protection against the weather one hundred and ninety 
years, are still in perfect condition, and as available as at first. 
One of them is a celestial globe, seven feet in diameter, with 
the constellations raised upon it, showing the exact condition of 
astronomy as it stood two centuries ago. Besides this, there are an 
astrolabe, an armillary sphere, trigonometers, transit instruments, 
and quadrants. Although the institution remains, the circumstances 
which attended its foundation have entirely passed away. When 
the Jesuits, here as in Japan, betrayed the ambition of the Church, 
they were dismissed and banished. The institution fell under the 
care of native professors, by whom it has been neglected. At the 
base of the Observatory is a shabby suite of apartments, in which 
the two or three native professors dwell, whose business it is to cor-» 
rect the calendar of the seasons astronomically, while they designate 
for the almanac the days which are lucky and unlucky for births, 
marriages, bargains, journeys, combats, festivals, and funerals. 

November 8th. — The event of the day has been an audience 
given to Mr. Seward, with Admiral Hodgers, by the Imperial 
Cabinet (Yamen). It required great skill and much care to organ- 
ize, arrange and mount the party. If, among the "Western nations, 
"none but the brave deserve the fair," so, in China, none but great 
mandarins deserve to ride in chairs, and only princes and ministers 
are allowed to ride in green chairs ; and this, not because green 
suits their complexion the best, but because green in China is the 
color indicative of preeminent rank. So Mr. Seward, Admiral 
Rodgers, the United States minister, and the consul-general, took 
their seats in green chairs, while the staff and others were mounted 



INTEEVIEW WITH THE CHINESE CABINET. 141 

on ponies, so far as the capital furnished a supply. The " balance," 
as our campaign-speakers say, went in carts. The progress was 
on the avenue — not Pennsylvania Avenue by any means, but the 
avenue without show of pavement, which leads from the Imperial 
city, through the Tartar city to its outer wall. It was obstructed 
with auctions, theatrical entertainments, gambling-rings, and every 
thing else. The head of the procession, consisting of the green 
chairs, winding its way among these obstructions by the vigor and 
adroitness of the bearers, reached its destination, and alighted at. 
the porch of the foreign office. It is a low Chinese structure ; the 
doors, wide open, revealed the Yam en arranged in a row within 
to receive the guests. But the head of the procession, discovering 
that the tail had fallen off, decided to wait outside, nntil the lost 
member should reconnect. This made a delay of twenty minutes, 
which, as we suppose, was imperfectly explained to the ministers 
within, who made an unmistakable demonstration of impatience. 
Perceiving this, the head entered, leaving the caudal part to come 
np to time as it could. In the middle of the room stood a table of 
the common European height, eight feet long and three feet wide. 
Broad and comfortable stools were placed around it ; there was no 
carpet or other furniture, but a kind of clivan or sofa against two 
sides of the wall. Mr. Seward and his chief associates of the green 
chairs were graciously received by five chief ministers of state, all 
of grave aspect, and two of them of advanced age. They were 
richly dressed in silks, over which were spread ermine and other 
furs. They saluted their guests at first in the Chinese fashion, by 
bowing with hands brought palm to palm on their breasts ; after 
this they shook hands in the American way. All the ministers 
then busied themselves in a somewhat demonstrative way in seat- 
ing their guests. Two of the Chinese ministers took their seats at 
the upper end of the table, in the order, not of their rank, but of 
seniority. They placed Mr. Seward at the side of the table on the 
left, then Mr. Low, then the admiral, and then the consul-general ; 
next two interpreters. The remaining members of the cabinet 
completed the circle. The table was thickly spread with china 
dishes filled with hon-bons and dried fruits. The presiding min- 



142 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



ister then rose and announced that his Imperial Highness Prince 
Kung, regent of the empire during the minority of the emperor, 
had been suddenly attacked this morning by a violent illness, on 
his return from the imperial palace. He lamented his failure to 







y 










PEINCE KUNG. 



meet Mr. Seward, as he had appointed, and had charged the cabi- 
net to receive him with this apology, or to postpone the audience 
to a future occasion, as Mr. Seward himself might prefer. The 
minister said he was charged by Prince Kung to say that he re- 
garded it as a great distinction that he was to become acquainted 
with Mr. Seward, and that the prince intended in any case, as 
soon as he should recover his health, to visit Mr. Seward at his 
residence. Although Mr. Seward accepted the apology without 
distrust or hesitation, yet all the members of the cabinet earnestly 
reenforced it. 

Mr. Seward then inquired about the health of Wan-Siang, who 
was absent. The presiding minister replied that Wan-Siang was 
ill, and had just obtained leave of absence from his post in the 
ministry for a year, to mourn the death of his mother. But they 
instantly dispatched a courier to him, communicating Mr. Seward's 
inquiries. The courier, in less than half an hour, brought a mes- 



ANSON BURLINGAME. 143 

sage of thanks and friendship from Wan-Siang. Later Mr. Seward 
spoke of the ability which Wan-Siang had displayed in his negotia- 
tions with the United States, and of the friendship he had always 
manifested toward our country. These words, like Mr. Seward's 
previous inquiries, were taken down and reported to "Wan-Siang by 
a courier, and elicited a similar reply. The ministers spoke with 
much feeling of the death of Mr. Burlingame. Mr. Seward said 
that Mr. Burlingame's diplomatic career was an illustration of the 
highest possible success. A minister lives always under two dis- 
tinct and sometimes irreconcilable obligations : First, he must 
retain the confidence of his own country ; secondly, he must not 
foil to win the confidence of the country to which he is accredited. 
Mr. Burlingame filled both obligations, and thus was enabled to 
unite the two nations in a new bond of peace, and in a common 
effort to advance civilization. The ministers thought themselves 
under obligations to Mr. Seward ; in the first instance, for the ap- 
pointment of Mr. Burlingame as United States minister to China, 
and then for receiving him as minister of China to the United 
States and Europe. 

Mr. Seward inquired the number and functions of the " Banner- 
men." The ministers replied : " They are four distinct legions, con- 
taining many thousand men. They all reside at Peking. They 
are sworn to maintain and defend the emperor in all conflicts, 
whether at home or abroad, and in compensation for this service 
they all receive stipends from the Government. But the organiza- 
tion of the legions is worn out. The service is a sinecure, costly, 
and useless." 

Manifestly the ministers feared that the apologies for the absence 
of Prince Kung from the reception might be thought by Mr. Sew- 
ard insincere and evasive, for they returned to the subject contin- 
ually. He assured them that, although he had during eight years 
conducted the diplomatic relations of the United States with China, 
yet in all that time not one case of procrastination or subterfuge, 
on the part of the regent, had occurred. Mr. Seward hoped for 
the prince's speedy recovery, and begged the ministers to be at 
their ease about the present disappointment. 



14:4: JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

The senior minister then, in a most reverential manner, ad- 
dressed Mr. Seward, " What is your venerable age ? " Just at this 
solemn stage of the audience, when all were silently waiting for 
Mr. Seward's reply, what should appear but the tail of our great 
national procession ! Slowly eliminating itself from the street, it 
entered the gate, crossed the court, and appeared at the door. All 
at once the queued sub-officials of the foreign office, who had 
gathered there to be witnesses of the interesting ceremony, rushed 
upon the porch to discover the cause of the interruption. Proc- 
lamations were then made in Chinese by the ministers within, 
which our friends outside, not waiting for an interpretation, under- 
stood to be, " Make way for the tail ! " "Way was made, and quickly 
too, but where the amazed native lookers-on went to. our friends 
could not discover. The Chinese ministers all five, the American 
guests all four, and the interpreters twain, rose to their feet to re- 
ceive the tail, and remained in that respectful attitude until that 
important extremity had extended itself with its gilt epaulets and 
buttons, its blue and black coats, and white gloves, on the row of 
benches around the room. Order being restored, the presiding 
minister renewed the suspended inquiry. Mr. Seward, looking 
around him, said : " I think I am neither the oldest nor the youngest 
statesman here. I am sixty-nine. I hope that the youngest may 
live to reach your own honorable age, which I understand to be 
seventy-five, and that all may be blessed with years beyond that 
age." 

This answer of Mr. Seward was received with great hilarity by 
the Chinese cabinet, and unanimously pronounced to be so exqui- 
sitely courteous as to deserve a bumper. Thereupon glasses were 
brought in, filled with a hot, strong drink, which they called wine. 
Then followed a slow and measured succession of delicate viands, 
birds'-nest soup, pigeons' -eggs, cabbages minced, and tender shoots 
of bamboo boiled, pheasants, grouse, and stewed wild -ducks of 
many kinds, fishes, sharks'-fins and other luxuries with names un- 
known. These dishes, in the whole numbering not less than one 
hundred and fifty, were severally served to each guest in the smallest 
bits on tiny plates, which at last crowded and encumbered the table. 



POETICAL STATESMEN. 145 

These plates were filled by the ministers from tureens, which con- 
tinually replaced each other. Each visitor was provided with knife 
and fork, as well as chop-sticks. It is etiquette here for each person 
to help every other person at the table to every course that comes 
on. Occasionally, Mr. Seward raised a political question of some 
sort, but the ministers adroitly passed it by. Whether they were 
unwilliDg to speak freely in the absence of the regent, or whether 
they feared to expose themselves before the crowded Chinese audi- 
ence, which had again gathered in the apartment, Mr. Seward could 
not determine. We learn that all the offices of the Government 
are filled or suspected of being filled with spies. It was soon 
manifest that little was to be learned of Chinese affairs at this 
magnificent entertainment. The ministers, with evident self-satis- 
faction, entertained their guests with familiar Chinese proverbs, 
epigrams, and riddles, and they resolutely persisted in accepting as 
clever every thing said by Mr. Seward, or either of the other guests, 
however commonplace it might be. Two of the ministers are 
poets; they rehearsed their own verses and other Chinese poetry, 
with marked emphasis and at great length. Neither of the inter- 
preters, however, could render these verses into intelligible English. 
But the guests received the rehearsal as fine, nevertheless. 

One of the ministers said : " Mr. Seward, your complexion is very 
fresh and your step vigorous. You must have a secret, which en- 
ables you to preserve them through such great labors and travels." 

" You are complimentary," answered Mr. Seward ; " what 
health and strength I have are due to activity and exercise." 

To this one of the poetical ministers responded : " Yes, every 
thing in the universe is constantly active ; only the Creator of all 
is at rest." 

Mr. Seward now began to understand that this reception was 
intended less as an audience than as a feast, and that drinking deep, 
or at least often, is here a requirement of such an entertainment. 
The ministers descanted both in prose and poetry, with proverbs 
and epigrams, on the virtue of hospitality, and the excellence of 
conviviality. They drank deep and filled up often. 

Addressing Admiral Rodgers, one of the two Anacreons insisted 



146 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

that the best proof of friendship that one can give at an entertain- 
ment is, to get drunk. All his associates facetiously concurred. 

Admiral Podgers answered : " I accept the generous sentiment, 
and I invite all the members of the cabinet to get as drunk as 
possible, and as quickly as they can." 

The cabinet showed its appreciation of the admiral's repartee 
by vehement laughter and much gesticulation. At least, one of 
them took the gallant admiral at his word, and drank much deeper 
than before. 

The hospitality of the ministers was not monopolized by the 
head of the procession. Dainty dishes and strong drinks were 
served to the tail as it lay stretched along the benches. They were 
discussed with entire satisfaction, but in respectful though wonder- 
ing silence. 

After a sitting of four hours, Mr. Seward, to whom the right 
belonged, brought the entertainment to an end by proposing to 
his august entertainers : " Perpetual peace, prosperity, and welfare 
to China." 

The ministers deliberated, consulted, and then asked leave to 
amend by adding the words, " and the United States." 

Mr. Seward accepted the amendment with a further amend- 
ment, which brought the sentiment into this form, satisfactory to 
all the party : 

"Perpetual peace, prosperity and welfare to China and the 
United States, the oldest and the youngest of empires. 

The visitors rose, and, after the most respectful and cordial bow- 
ing and hand-shaking, were dismissed. The procession reached the 
legation at a very late hour. We have not heard whether it stood 
any more firmly on the order of its coming than it did on the 
" order of its going," as the gentlemen had no time to report be- 
fore sitting down to Mr. Low's dinner, the great diplomatic enter- 
tainment of the season. 

November 9tk. — Three months to-day from Auburn. Not a 
word yet from home. Mr. Seward has sent a telegram by courier 
one hundred and eighty miles to Kiakhta, on the Russian frontier, 



A LADIES' DAY. 



147 



there to be put on the Russian wires. How much more have we 
seen and learned, in these three months of foreign travel, than we 
could have seen and learned within the same period of travel at 
home ! A messenger has come to the legation with compliments 
to Mr. Seward, and a polite inquiry whether his reception yester- 
day was agreeable to him. They desired him to know that they 
never unbent themselves so much to a stranger as they did to him 
on that occasion. 

This has been especially a ladies' day. Yang-Fang, pawnbroker 




TANG-FANG. 



by profession, mandarin by rank, one of the three richest men in 
Peking, was educated at Shanghai, where he had some opportuni- 
ties of seeing the Western mode of life. Pie is desirous of culti- 
vating the acquaintance of foreigners here so far as he can do so 
without exciting Chinese suspicion of his loyalty. He tendered an 
invitation to the three ladies to visit his family. The invitation 
was communicated confidentially, and with the condition that they 
should be attended by only two gentlemen, neither of whom should 
be an official person. The ladies went at one o'clock to-day, in 
13 



148 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



closely-covered chairs, through, familiar streets, until they turned 
into a narrow and uninviting one. There they stopped at the gate 
of an outside wall, one of many gates of the same kind. Through 
this gate they were ushered into a paved court. Ascending three 
or four steps, they entered a second gate. The mandarin received 
them there with his wife and five handmaidens who were waiting, 
and led them through a corridor. This ceremony over, the wife led 
the party to her boudoir. This room is furnished with a curious 
combination of European and Chinese styles. A Brussels carpet, 




■WIFE OF TANG-FANG. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HIMSELF.) 



half a dozen mirrors of different sizes, with gilt frames, pictures of 
the Yosemite valley, a French clock, a barometer, a small Ameri- 
can sewing-machine with a crank, two chairs covered with red 
cloth, Chinese divans, a French bedstead with curtains, French 
knick-knacks, but no Chinese ones, rows of porcelain vases, and 
pots filled with chrysanthemums, an aquarium with gold-fish, a 
black cat, six finely-brecl spaniels, and a monkey, made the comple- 
ment of this singular apartment. The visitors, taking seats on the 
European sofas, and the Chinese ladies on the divans, exchanged 
compliments as well as they could, the American ladies trying to 



A CHINESE LADY. 



140 



recall the instructions they had received from Chi-Tajcn at Auburn. 
Next the Chinese ladies took the watches, gold chains, bracelets, 
and foreign rings, and inspected them carefully. At the same time 
they put into the hands of their visitors their own ornaments, 
pearls, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and amethysts. After this the 
ladies of the house examined the American ladies' dresses, hats, 
and gloves, marking well the fashion and material, and in a gentle 
and unaffected way offered to inspection their own richer and more 
elegant costumes of silk and embroidery. The wife is a delicate r 
looking woman of forty. She wore a lavender-colored, embroid- 
ered crepe petticoat, over this a double tunic of two pretty shades 
of blue silk, trimmed with a variegated chintz border, scarlet satin 
embroidered under-sleevcs, so long as nearly to conceal the slender 
hands — the nails, as long as the lingers, polished and stained to re- 
semble tortoise-shell, each nail having for its protection a wrought 
gold case. Her coarse, black Mongolian hair, carefully dressed 
and fastened with gold pins, was partly covered with a black-satin 




LONG NAILS. 



cap, tied at the back. This cap, not unlike in shape to the " Mary 
Stuart," was entirely seeded with pearls, rubies, emeralds, and 
sapphires, many of them, especially the pearls, large, and of rare 
value. Her feet, of which only occasional glimpses could be had, 
were not more than three inches long, and were tightly encased 
in scarlet-satin shoes ; her face and neck, literally plastered with 
pearl-white, in shocking contrast with eyelids and cheeks painted 
pink, and lips red ; her manners and speech are unmistakably 



150 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

refined ; she is reputed intellectual, and fond of books. The fire 
handmaidens were dressed in a manner which, though not inele- 
gant, showed the inferiority of their position — one of them very 
handsome, dressed in scarlet satin, but none of the five wore jewels, 
or had small feet. The wife has no children ; two of the waiting- 
women have. While, by the custom of China, these children are 
accredited to the wife as her own, and deemed legitimate, their 
mothers rather lose than acquire respect by the parentage. The 
mutual inspection of dresses in the boudoir having ended, the visit- 
ors were next conducted to what they supposed to be the mandarin's 
apartment, the great room of the house. Here they found a sofa," 
a covered table, and two chairs, all European, a broad but very low 
carved Chinese bedstead, with heavy blue-silk curtains, and cases 
of chemical, photographic, electric, and other scientific apparatus 
of European manufacture. Tea was served in French china cups, 
first the English breakfast-tea, afterward the real Chinese beverage, 
which has the exquisite aroma of neroli ; with it nice cakes of end- 
less variety and shapes, made of flour, sugar, and oil. The wife 
and one of the women sat at the table with the guests, while the 
others busied themselves in sending in the different courses of the 
entertainment, which were served by young girls. The Chinese 
ladies, with their own hands, favored their guests with cigarettes 
made of Turkish tobacco, while they themselves used long, massive, 
silver pipes. The smoke was inhaled through water, and invariably 
blown out of the nose. Being well provided with interpreters, the 
visitors tried to induce conversation. The Chinese ladies answered 
nothing, but laughed at every thing the guests said. They then 
endeavored to accommodate themselves to their entertainers, and 
spoke to them as to children, but with little more success. The 
mandarin improved the opportunity to express his admiration for 
European customs. He thanked the ladies for the honor of their 
visit, and then showed them all the other apartments of the house. 
These have only stone floors, and the rooms are without furniture. 
He even conducted them to his opium-smoking room for guests, 
with its carefully prepared kang and pillows for reclining upon 
when the delicious intoxication comes on. The ladies, of course, 



A CHINESE INTERIOR. 



151 



did not indulge. The mandarin informed them that he does not 
practise it, and on this occasion the use of the room was lost. The 
mandarin, being a proficient in photography, displays pictures of 




yang-fakg's smoking-eoom. 



his wife and handmaidens throughout the house. In one room 
there is a disorderly collection of Chinese books. 

In going through the maze of apartments, the ladies, hearing the 
loud chirping of a cricket, stopped. Thereupon one of the women 
brought out a white-silk bag from her pocket, and took from it a 
small, exquisitely-carved bamboo-box, and, opening it, showed us her 
pet cricket, which closely resembles the American grasshopper. The 
lighting of crickets is a favorite amusement of the Chinese ladies. 

A rather rough cast-iron English pump, standing against the 
wall, attracted the attention of the visitors, and they inquired its 
use. The mandarin said, " It is set up to extinguish accidental fire, 
and I put the women under it when they quarrel." The women 
evidently looked upon it with disgust. 

The house consists of no less than twenty distinct buildings. 



152 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



with red-and-yellow verandas, all connected by two very irregular 
corridors, one above the other, which turn and twist up and down 
through crooked little staircases, under arches, around square pil- 
lars, in and out of all sorts of dark holes and cornerSo There are 
two narrow areas, which pretend to be gardens, with a grotesque 
combination of shrubbery and rock-work. 

Having finished the exploration of this quaint, inconvenient, 
and dingy mansion, the visitors took their leave, and reached the 
legation at six in the evening. 




CHINESE GATEWAY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RESIDENCE IN PEKING {Continued). 

The Decay of China.— The Temple of Heaven.— The Temple of the Earth.— The Tem- 
ple of Buddha. — The Chinese Bonzes. — The Temple of Confucius. — The Religion 
of China. — A Pleasant Reunion. — The Birds of Peking. — An Official Dilemma. — 
Interview with Wan-Siang. — Influence of Burlingame. 

November 10th. — : ¥e are inclined to think that, while every 
other nation in the world is advancing toward a higher plane of 
civilization, China is not merely stationary, but is actually going 
backward and downward. Is this decline of China a result of the 
imperfect development of religious truth % The Chinese remain 
now as they were five thousand years ago, materialists. They 
worship the heavens, they worship the earth, the sun, and the 
moon, the planets, and the ocean, besides a multitude ot other 
natural objects and forces. They worship, more than any other 
creature, their ancestors, who are created beings even if they have 
an existence after death. Even the philosophy and morals of Con- 
fucius have left the Chinese, sentiment of his teachings not less 
material than before. The Chinese have expressed this materialism 
in erecting great temples — the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of 
the Earth, and the Temple of the Moon. To the material heaven 
they ascribe all power, and from it they claim that the emperor, as 
vicegerent, derives all authority. As Heaven made not only China, 
but the whole world, so the emperor as vicegerent not only governs 
the empire, but is rightful ruler of the whole earth. The Temple 



154 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

of Heaven, in Peking, is therefore, preeminently, the imperial one ; 
or, if there is such a thing as a sense of nationality in China, the 
national one — more national than "Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's 
is a national church of England, or ]S"otre-Dame a national church 
of France, or St. Peter's of Italy. The Temple of Heaven is to 
China what Solomon's Temple was to the people ot Judea. It 
stands in an enclosed area of six hundred acres. Its lofty porcelain 
dome, typical of heaven, has the azure tint of the sky. Its cir- 
cular altar consists of three stages or stories, the lower one hundred 
and twenty feet, the second ninety feet, and the third sixty feet in 
diameter. In this Temple of Heaven the emperor is crowned, and 
by that ceremony assumes, as vicegerent of Heaven, the govern- 
ment of the whole earth. He is dressed in blue, imitating the 
drapery of the skies, and faces the south, because China chiefly lies 
south of Peking, and the rest of the world is supposed to be lying- 
in dependence beyond it. Here he makes annual sacrifices to 
Heaven, invoking its protection of the empire in war, and its bless- 
ings in peace. Dressed in yellow, the color of the earth, he offers 
similar though less frequent sacrifices at the Temple of the Earth. 
Dressed in red robes, he makes similar homage in the Temple of 
the Sun, and in pale white in the Temple of the Moon. 

A high, embanked road, once grandly paved, leads from the 
imperial palace, in the " Forbidden City," to the Temple of Heaven. 
When the emperor visits this temple, he is seated in a yellow-and- 
blue car, which is drawn over that road by six white elephants. 
The temple is held as sacred by the Chinese as the Caaba at Mecca 
by the Mohammedans. Mr. Seward was desirous to visit it. All 
the foreign ministers assured him that the popular prejudice against 
profaning the temple, even by the intrusion of the Chinese them- 
selves, is so great that no ministry could dare open it to a foreigner. 
Not long ago, however, there was a place broken in the outer wall, 
over which some adventurous travellers have entered. We set out 
to explore, thinking it possible we might effect an entrance through 
that breach. On the way we took notice that the present regency 
has sold all the imperial elephants, and that the stables are falling 
into decay. We found the imperial avenue in ruins, so that no 



THE TEMPLE OF AGRICULTURE. 



155 



elephant-ear or other vehicle could be driven over it. We made 
our way on foot and in chairs. Arriving opposite the temple area, 
we discovered that, although the breach in the wall had been closed, 
a gate at the front was open, a janitor standing by it. This seem- 
ing a propitious sign, we left the avenue, and directed our steps 
thither. The janitor, seeing us approach, closed the gate, and re- 
tired, certainly out of sight, but we thought not out of hearing. 
We had interpreters ready of speech and skilful to negotiate, but 
no inducement that we offered, either moral or pecuniary, could 
avail to bring back the lost custodian. This was only one more 
renewal of the experience which other members of the party had 




TEMPLE OF HEAVEN. 



for several days. More disappointed than chagrined, we crossed 
the avenue, to a gate opposite the Temple of Heaven, which opens 
upon the same area with the Temple of Agriculture. A long 



156 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

argument ensued between our interpreter, Dr. "Williams and the 
custodian. It ended by bis taking half a dollar in Chinese " cash." 
On inquiry, however, we found that the difficulty was not one that 
involved the privilege of entering the temple, but only a question 
of prepayment of the fee. 

The enclosure of the Temple of Agriculture contains four hun- 
dred acres. Custom requires that the emperor shall come once a 
year to this temple, with the same magnificent demonstration as on 
the occasion of his visits to the Temple of Heaven, and, as vice- 
gerent of Heaven, shall break the earth with a plough, sow it with 
seed, and implore propitious rain and sunshine, and plentiful harvest. 
These functions being celestial, the right to perform them cannot 
be delegated, and so they are for the present suspended during the 
minority of the emperor. The present emperor is yet only thirteen 
years of age. Several years having elapsed since the death of the 
last monarch, the temple and its appurtenances exhibit neglect and 
ruin, such as are not likely to occur on the show-grounds of our 
agricultural fairs. 

A large portion of the grounds is covered with cypress-groves, 
a growth of more than five hundred years. The grounds and even 
the roads are overrun with coarse, rank grass and weeds. The wild- 
thorn made fearful havoc with our clothes, and we required to be 
continually on our guard against nettles. In an open square of 
half an acre is a circular platform of stone, with a marble balus- 
trade and a staircase, which is guarded by the figure of a dragon. 
On ceremonial occasions, a throne is placed in the centre of this 
platform under a gorgeous blue canopy. Here the emperor alights 
from his palanquin, and takes his seat in solitary pomp. Directly 
opposite, at a distance of thirty feet, is a similar platform which is 
occupied by the imperial family. Proclamation being made, the 
emperor leaves the throne, and makes a solemn progress, followed 
by his family and ministers, to a temple some two hundred feet 
distant, which may be eighty feet square and fifty feet high ; against 
the inner wall of this temple a dais is raised twenty feet, and upon 
it is a throne, the same which the late emperor occupied at the Inst 
celebration. Over the throne, in large characters, is this legend : 



THE EMPEROR PLOUGHING. 157 

" We praise the Gocl who taught men to sow, and who gives them 
the harvest." 

Altars with vases surround the throne. When the emperor has 
been seated for a time, he rises, and, standing erect, lifts his hands 
in adoration, and amid the clouds of incense invokes the blessings 
needful for his people. This part of the ceremony concluded, the 
emperor then walks to a distant enclosure of perhaps eight acres. 
Here, upon another throne, he is attended by the imperial family 
and the whole court. New proclamation being made, the emperor 
advances into the field, and with his own hand on the plough drives 
it until one acre of soil is upturned. This clone, he scatters the 
seed. Princes of the imperial family and distinguished members 
of the court follow, and in like manner plough and sow the remain- 
der of the field. After this, the emperor, with his family, court, 
and ministers, repairs to a platform on the opposite side of the field, 



TABLET HALL. 



158 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

on which, is erected a large altar. Here, in the presence of all, he 
makes a burnt-offering of oxen, sheep, goats, and other animals to 
the God of Agriculture. 

Having surveyed these more prominent places in the area 
of the Temple of Agriculture, we next visited a great central 
edifice, on the walls of which are tablets dedicated to the God 
ot the Winds, the God of Thunder, the God of the Green 
Grass, and the God of the Green Stalks of Grain. "We were after- 
ward conducted to a sunken place, paved and walled with stone, 
in which place the sacrificial animals are kept. We saw here the 
arched passage through which they are driven, the yard in which 
they are butchered, the immense platform on which they are pre- 
pared for the altar, the huge furnaces and kettles in which the 
offerings are burned, and finally the oven, as large as a city bakery, 
in which, after the sacrifice is completed, all the refuse of the ani- 
mals, and all the garments and vestments of the priests and attend- 
ants engaged in the sacrifice, are reduced to ashes. 

On our way out of the temple, we stopped before a curious ivy- 
canopied oratory, within which stand the shrines of three gods, one 
a dwarf, the others larger, the three differing in complexion as in 
stature. The right figure, the God of the Sea, bears a trident, and 
is copper-colored. The left figure is the God of Rain, and is pure 
white. The central figure is the God of Benevolence, and is Afri- 
can black. The Chinese divinities are always attended by guar- 
dians. This singular group rejoices in the protection of a huge, 
fierce, wooden soldier, armed with a veritable musket, lock, stock, 
aucl barrel, complete. 

Three thousand three hundred and sixty years ago, the Al- 
mighty spake directly to a portion of the human race then residing 
on the western shore of Asia, " these words, saying, I am the 
Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou 
shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of any 
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or 
that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow thyself 
down to them, nor serve them ; for I the Lord thy God am a 
jealous God." 



THE TEMPLE OF BUDDHA. 159 

The nations which have established themselves between the 
Mediterranean shore, on which these words were spoken, and the 
eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, have accepted and obeyed- these 
awful commands, and have built a common system of civilization 
upon them. But the dwellers here on the eastern coast of China 
have not accepted either the idea that God is the Creator and 
Supreme Director of the Universe, or that he is One God, or that 
he is a jealous God. 

It is not to be understood, however, that the national mind of 
China has made no struggles to lift itself above the dead level of 
materialism. We proceeded from the Temple of Agriculture to 
visit one which is a monument of such a struggle. This is the 
Temple of Buddha. The founder of the Buddhist faith did in- 
deed reach the sublime truths expounded by Moses, that God 
is spiritual, One, and jealous. But he could not hold fast to 
that exalted truth pure and simple. That faith, therefore, while 
it accepts Buddha as the Supreme Creator of the Universe, 
teaches at the same time that, by various processes, occupying 
long spaces of time, he becomes and remains incarnate on the 
earth. This impersonation, bearing the name of the Grand Lama, 
resides in Thibet, veiled from all mortal eyes but a purified and 
sacred priesthood, which priesthood has its societies and orders 
throughout China and all the East. It is a subject of curious re- 
flection that, as, in Europe and America, the nations uniformly 
derive their revelations and systems of faith from the East, so, on 
the eastern shores and islands of Asia, they with equal confidence 
claim to have received their religious revelations from the West. 

The Buddhists have two great temples at Peking — one in the 
Tartar city, the other in the. Chinese. It was the former which we 
visited. It consists of several immense edifices, which in the seven- 
teenth century were the residence of an emperor, who becoming an 
adherent to that religion surrendered his palace to the community 
of Buddhist bonzes, and dedicated it to that form of worship. The 
principal structure, built of brick and stone, is capable of holding 
three thousand persons ; the roof is supported with columns of cedar 
brought from Birmah, eighty feet high. A gigantic wooden statue 



160 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

of Buddha towers from the floor to the roof. Its carved drapery, 
while it leaves the form distinct, conceals the entire person except 
the huge, jet-black face, fingers and toes. According to the tradi- 
tion of the sect, the living Buddha in Thibet had, at the time of his 
incarnation, eighteen most saintly apostles who endured all manner 
of trials and worked all manner of miracles. These eighteen 
apostles, carved in wood, sit cross-legged in a circle around the 
great idol, gazing at the soles of their feet, supposed to be an atti- 
tude of divine contemplation. Yases of incense stand before the 
god and each of the saints. The images are so far from having any 
spiritual expression, that the faces of all, including that of Buddha, 
are simply inane. All around the temple are shrines, each of 
which supports a diminutive female figure carved in bronze. Each 
of these figures represents the virgin mother of the incarnate 
Buddha. It is not without probability that theologians suppose 
that this idea, now universally held by the Buddhists, analogous to 
that of the Madonna, is a modern innovation derived from some 
early inculcations of the Christian Church. Certainly the similarity 
is remarkable. One of our fellow-travellers at Shanghai bought a 
bronze image of the mother of Buddha, with an infant in its arms, 
which, on examination, we concluded to be an antique figure of 
the Yirgin Mary. These statuettes to-day are carefully draped in 
bright yellow silk, the thermometer having fallen last night to 32°. 
Admiral Hodgers will verify another curious ornament which 
arrested our attention in this temple. It is a picture which hangs 
against the inner wall, and presents a view of the Last Judgment 
— a celestial figure pronouncing sentence, the doomed descending 
into a fiery abyss, the blessed rising into regions of felicity. It is 
so like the conceptions of the middle ages, that the picture might 
have been a study for Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. 
There are a thousand bonzes in the monastery attached to this 
temple. They surrounded us on our way through it. Though 
they wear a yellow uniform, they are ragged and unclean, and 
appear in the last stage of mendicity. We shrank from too close a 
contact with them. They are ignorant, idle, and lazy. They seem 
to have no efficient ecclesiastical superior, and to be amenable to 



THE TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS. 



161 



no public opinion. In those respects they contrast very disadvan- 
tageous!^ with the cleanly, neat, and courteous bonzes whom we 
saw in Japan. Although a daily ritual service is read in the temple, 
it everywhere exhibits the saddest evidences of neglect and dilapi- 
dation. 

After so broad a study of the practices of idolatry, we were now 
prepared for the more pleasing ones of rationalistic institutions. 
Escaping from the mendicant throng, who followed us to the outer 




THE TEMPLE OP CONFUCIUS. 



gate of the Buddhist monastery, we proceeded to the Temple of 
Confucius. It is about as spacious as the Senate-hall in Washing- 
ton. After having been so long bedazzled and bewildered by the 
Buddhist and other pagan temples in China, it was not without 
pleasant surprise that we found the great hall, which we now en- 
tered, unique in design and simple in decoration. There is here 



1G2 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

neither idol nor image, the likeness of any thing in the heaven 
above, or the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, noth- 
ing to bow down to or worship. There is neither altar, nor vase, 
nor candelabra. Instead of all these, there is, in a large niche in 
the rear wall, a plain pedestal, which bears a modest red tablet, on 
which is engraved, in letters of gold, the name " Confucius." The 
architrave of the niche bears seven legends, the homages of the sev- 
eral emperors, of the present dynasty, who have reigned since the 
temple was built. These legends are as follows : 

By Kia-King. 
" The holy one combined the great perfections." 

By Kang-Hi. 

" The leader and" patron of all nations." 

By Yung-Chestg. 
"Mankind has seen none like him." 

By Keen-Ling. 
" The equal of Heaven and Earth." 

By Tai-Kwang. 

" The holy one who assists in harmonizing the seasons." 

By Hien-Fung. 
" His virtue is all the virtue which can exist between the cano- 
py of Heaven above and the Earth below." 

Feng-Chi, the present boy-emperor, contributes this : 
" His holiness is divine ; Heaven cannot circumscribe it." 

Around the sides of the room are arranged tablets dedicated to 
eminent disciples of Confucius. Near the temple is the great 
Palace Hall, where the annual competitive examination of pupils, 
from all parts of the empire, is held. The construction of the Ex- 
amination Chamber is at once convenient and elegant. We are 



THE ACADEMY. 



163 



not sure that it would be thought exceptional for Lyceum or Ex- 
amination Hall at Yale or Harvard. It has a raised platform, with 
a plain throne, for the emperor, who annually attends here for 
the purpose of conferring the degrees, and has chairs for the exam- 
iners, with benches, raised in semicircular rows, for the candidates. 
The studies are confined to the writings of Confucius, which are 
regarded as the classics of China, and every word of which is labo- 



: : I . 
I I I !l II' i Ml , I 

llj Minimum' 

" . i ; , i ! >' '. 1 1 nnTTTTTTiiil 







llilii 




IMAGE OF CONFUCIUS. 



riously committed to memory. A long, covered corridor connects 
this hall with the temple last described. This corridor has a row 
of massive granite columns. We could not stop to count them. 
The square monoliths are completely covered with the writings of 
Confucius, the text being the prescribed standard for all republica- 
tions within the empire. The grounds contain twelve thousand 
apartments for professors and scholars. The entire institution 
bears, in government language, the name of "academy." "We 



164 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

were sorry to find all parts of the academy covered with dust and 
sand, and exhibiting evidence of much neglect, though not dilapi- 
dated like the temples. 

Open any Chinese book, ask any Chinese statesman or scholar, 
and you will learn that Confucius is worshipped. Push the inquiry 
further, and you will learn that he is worshipped not as a deity, 
but as a person of divine perfection. The absence of the custom- 
ary symbols of worship in the Temple of Confucius confirms this 
view. The Chinese ambassadors at Washington refused to recognize 
one of their young countrymen who had been educated at Fairfax 
Theological Seminary for the Christian ministry. He pleaded, as 
an excuse for his conversion, the divinity of Christ. They replied : 
" Why do we want another Christ \ We have a Christ of our own, 
Confucius." A Chinaman, whom we met here, when pressed by 
one of our missionaries to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ as the 
gift of God to man, replied : " Why is not a Christ born in China 
as good as a Christ born in the United States % " 

This national habit of comparing Confucius with the Saviour 
undoubtedly results from the similarity, in many respects, between 
the teachings of Confucius and the Christian morals. The Chinese 
reformer teaches no dogmatic theology, either of materialism or 
mysticism. He tolerates all such, however, while his code of mor- 
als and manners is adapted to all classes and conditions of society, 
and to all forms of religious faith. The worshippers of heaven and 
earth, the sun, moon, and stars, can accept the system of Confu- 
cius, because it does not interfere with any principles of their own. 
The Buddhists entertain no jealousy of it. It fails, however, to 
regenerate the empire; it is "of the earth, earthy." "As is the 
earthy, such are they also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, 
such are they also that are heavenly." The motive of duty to our 
fellow-men must have its most effective spring in the sense of duty 
to God. No human being can have that sense, unless he has 
accepted the truth that God is one, and that he is a Spirit to be 
worshipped in spirit and in truth. 

The day closed with an excursion through the imperial city, 
and under the walls of the "prohibited" city. The grounds at- 



THE PARADISE OF BIRDS. 165 

taclied to the imperial palaces have an exquisite arrangement of 
lawn and grove, of hill and lake. These grounds are cultivated with 
due care, and gave us the only scene we have found in Peking, or 
indeed in China, exempt from the ravages of decay and desolation. 

November Wth. — We met, last evening, the diplomatic society, 
and all the foreigners residing in Peking, in a pleasant reunion 
at the British legation. 

The imperial parks and gardens, the groves around the temples, 
the waste places made by sieges and fires, not to speak of the mul- 
titude of canals, fit Peking to be a paradise of birds, and the taste 
of the Chinese people favors their preservation. We are awakened 
every morning by the cawing of the foraging army of crows going 
out on their march to the cornfields outside the city. The sky 
is blackened at sunset with the regiments returning to bivouac. 
The crow is not here, however, as among us, regarded with dislike. 
He is taught solemn exercises, cunning acts, and winning ways. 
Thrushes, as large as our robins, and sparrows especially beautiful, 
abound, and game is more plentiful than poultry at home. The 
pigeon, everywhere a favorite of man, is especially so here. Flocks, 
whirling through the air at all hours of the day, arrest notice by 
shrill and varied notes, which they never utter elsewhere. We 
were a long time perplexed as to what particular species these birds 
belonged, and in what way they produced these not unmusical 
sounds. They are reared in dovecotes, and a light reed-whistle is 
delicately fastened on the back of the bird, at the root of the tail- 
feathers. Many reasons are assigned for this invention. The 
most common one is, that it frightens the crows in their depreda- 
tions. Another, that they protect the flocks against the birds of 
prey. However this may be, the music produced on these iEolian 
harps is sufficient to account for the practice, without looking for 
any economical reason. 

We have frequently recognized the pigeon in his office of letter- 
carrier. He is the only postman employed in China, except the 
swift-footed Government conrier, whose toil is so great while his 
reward is so small. What a change must come over the empire, 



166 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

when this postman gives place to the railroad, the express, and the 
electric telegraph ! "We have not seen the magpie domesticated, 
but he keeps perpetual ward in the palaces, castles, and gates. 

While we have been studying the birds of Peking, some mem- 
bers of our party were making a new advance upon the Temple of 
Heaven. "What they saw must be recorded, less for the forbidden 
knowledge which was gained than for the moral reflections which 
it suggests. Mr. Coles, a pupil in the American legation, conduct- 
ed a party of four, two of whom were ladies, along the high, paved 
road in the direction of the temple. At a distance from the gate 
he left them and threw himself into a mean, closely-covered mule- 
cart, in which he made his way unsuspected along the base of the 
wall, until he reached the central gate, from which we had before 
been repulsed. Emerging from the cart, he rushed into the open 
gate- way, and planted himself by the side of the stern janitor, who 
requested the unwelcome visitor to retire, and attempted to close 
the gate. But the visitor stood firm, all the while beckoning to the 
distant party to come up. The custodian now betrayed a con- 
sciousness that he did " perceive here a divided duty." In any case 
it was a duty to save the great altar from profanation by native or 
foreigner, especially the latter. Secondly, since the Tien-Tsin mas- 
sacre the Government has strenuously commanded that in no case 
shall offence be given to Christians. The custodian made the best he 
could of the dilemma, and yielding to the resistance which he could 
not overcome without violence, he piteously implored from the in- 
truder a douceur, by way of indemnity for the bastinado which 
the Government was sure to inflict as a punishment for infidelity at 
his post. Terms were liberally adjusted, and the party went suc- 
cessfully through the temple, penetrating even the holiest of its 
holies. The janitor hurried them forward, his fears of the bas- 
tinado increasing with every minute of delay. His terror became 
so great that, when they had completed the examination and 
returned to the gate, he demanded a larger sum for letting them 
out than he had before received for letting them in. 

To what a humiliating condition has the empire of Kublai-Khan 
fallen, when its sovereign dare not suffer the foreigner to enter the 



WAN-SI ANG'S LETTER. 167 

great national temple, through, fear of domestic insurrection, nor to 
forbid him from entering, through fear of foreign war ! 

"While the visitors confirm the descriptions of the magnificence 
of the temple which we have before mentioned, they assure us also 
that even in the Temple of Heaven, as in all the other edifices and 
places we have visited, neglect and decay are indescribable. 

"Wan-Siang is president of the Board of Kites, and principal 
Minister of Foreign Affairs. Acting in concert with the regent 
Prince Kung, Wan-Siang was the master-spirit who led the Chinese 
Government up to the resolution of entering into diplomatic rela- 
tions with the Western powers. It was he who solicited and 
procured from Mr. Seward at Washington a copy of Wheaton's 
" Law of Nations," and caused it to be translated and adopted by 
the imperial Government. He, more than any other, was efficient 
in instituting the Burlingame mission. As has been before in- 
timated, when we arrived he was under a leave of absence from 
official duties for one year, on the double ground of his ill-health 
and the duty of mourning for that period the death of his mother. 
Under these circumstances Mr. Seward, the day after his audience 
with the cabinet, addressed a note to Wan-Siang, sympathizing with 
him in his illness, and proposing to visit the minister at his own 
house. This note brought an autograph letter, beautifully written 
on rose-colored Chinese official paper, as follows : 

" I have long heard of your excellency's great fame, which for 
many years has been cherished by all nations, and I myself have 
exceedingly respected you and longed for a better acquaintance. 
Since you have come to our country, its high authorities will be 
still more desirous of seeing and conversing with you. But, as for 
myself, an old malady having returned, I have been obliged to ask 
a leave of absence, and it was an occasion of regret and disappoint- 
ment that I was unable to meet you on the 7th instant, when 
you visited the foreign office. I have had the honor to receive 
your note of yesterday, in which you propose to yourself the great 
trouble of coining to see me, an honor which I shall engrave in my 
heart, and write on my bones. But my dwelling is mean and 
small, and its condition would, I fear, be offensive to you, which 



168 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

would be a matter of deep regret to me. I have, therefore, set 
apart the 11th instant to go and cal] on you at one o'clock in 
the afternoon, if my health will in anywise enable me to do so. 
"We can then converse at length. I shall be pleased to receive a 
reply, and I avail myself of this occasion to wish that happiness 
may every day be yours." 

The letter bore no signature, but enclosed within was the writ- 
ten card of Wan-Siang. 

At twelve another autograph card of Wan-Siang was delivered 
to Mr. Seward, as an announcement of the minister's approach. 
He arrived at the moment, in a green sedan-chair, with two 
mounted attendants and four footmen. He is a dignified and 
grave person, and he went through the ceremony of introduction 
to Mr. Seward with ease and politeness. He wore a rich dress 
of silks and furs, and a mandarin's hat with a peacock's feather 
and a coral ball on the top. Mr. Seward and Mr. Low sat down 
with "Wan-Siang, Dr. "Williams acting as interpreter. "Wan-Siang 
said: 

" I have been detained at my home one whole year by ill- 
health. I should not have come out from it now, and perhaps I 
should never have come out from it again, but for my desire 
to make your acquaintance. I have always known you as a firm 
and constant friend of a just and liberal policy, on the part of 
the "Western nations toward China. I am surprised to see you so 
vigorous after so laborious a public service. "What may be your 
honorable age ? " 

Me. Sewaed answered : " Sixty-nine." 

Wan-Siang exclaimed : " Sixteen years older than I, and yet so 
much stronger and more elastic ! You are going from your own 
country around the world, while I, alas ! am unable to keep about 
my own proper business at home." 

Me. Sewaed said: "Mr. Bnrlingame's letters and conversa- 
tions made me well acquainted with your character and your saga- 
cious and effective statesmanship." 

Wan-Siang : " We deplore the death of Mr. Burlingame. It is 
a loss to China that he died before accomplishing his mission. 



INTERVIEW WITH WAN-SIANG. 169 

Mr. Burlingame wrote to us from the United States how much the 
embassy was indebted to you for its great success." 

Me. Sewaed : " Before the treaty was signed at Washington, 
its provisions were confidentially submitted to the European 
courts. They gave us assurances that they would accept them. I 
met Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen at Shanghai. They told me that 
the treaty had been virtually accepted by the European states. 
Mr. Burlingame's mission was therefore a success. He has brought 
China and the West into relations of mutual friendship and accord. 
In this view his death was not premature. He has raised an 
honorable fame on a firm foundation." 

Wan-Slang : " Does any subject occur to you which is of com- 
mon interest to China and the United States, on which you would 
be free to speak ? " 

Me. Sewaed : " I think China ought to reciprocate with the 
Western nations by sending to them permanent resident ministers 
and consuls, who should be of equal rank with those which the for- 
eign nations accredit here. They ought, moreover, in all cases, to 
be not foreigners, but native Chinese." 

Wan-Siang : " We shall send such agents so soon as they can 
be educated here in the Western sciences and languages, so as to be 
qualified for their trusts." 

Me. Sewaed: "Better that they go unqualified than wait too 
long. Chinese experts will learn Western sciences, languages, laws, 
and customs, in the United States or in Europe, much faster than 
they can acquire them here. Moreover, Chinese immigration is 
already largely flowing into the United States. The rights and 
interests of Chinese immigrants are likely to suffer neglect there 
for want of Chinese diplomatic and consular agents, who, accord- 
ing to the customs of nations, are expected to invoke the atten- 
tion and protection of the Government, in cases of injustice or 
oppression. Again, there is no accord nor friendship where 
there is no reciprocity. China is now regarded, by all the West- 
ern nations, as not merely unsocial, but hostile, because she neg- 
lects the exchange of international courtesies abroad as well as 
at home." 



170 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Wan-Siang : " These are my own opinions. I have always en- 
deavored to bring them into practice." 

Mr. Seward : " There is another point upon which I would 
like to speak freely, if I should not be thought speaking in an un- 
friendly way. I think I know the temper of the European states. 
Chinese ministers are accorded a personal reception by the sover- 
eigns of those nations. The Chinese emperor refuses a personal 
reception to the foreign ministers here. Thus, the Chinese minis- 
ter is admitted to a direct acquaintance with the President of the 
United States, with the Queen of England, and with the Emperor 
of Russia. A minister from either of those countries, on -arriving 
here, learns that the Emperor of China is too sacred a person to be 
looked upon. This, to be sure, is only a question of ceremony and 
etiquette ; but, my dear sir, questions of ceremony and etiquette 
between nations often become the most serious and dangerous of 
all international complications." 

Wan-Siang bowed courteously, but made no reply. 

Mr. Low, interposing, said : " The subject is a delicate one just 
now, but we are sure that Wan-Siang is the last statesman in China 
to overlook it." 

Mr. Seward : " Are the students, such as I saw yesterday at 
the Temple of Confucius, and who are the only allowed candidates 
for official employments in China, instructed in modern Chinese 
sciences, or are they taught the ancient classics only?" 

"Wan-Siang : " Only the latter. I have attempted to procure 
the establishment of an imperial college, in which modern sciences 
and languages shall be taught by foreign professors. For a while 
I thought that I should succeed. But the effort has failed, and has 
brought me under deep reproach and general suspicion." 

Mr. Seward : " This ought not to discourage you. Every wise 
minister at some time falls under temporary reproach and unjust 
suspicion. Public opinion, in every country, is a capricious sea. 
Whoever attempts to navigate it is liable to be tossed about by 
storms." 

Wan-Siang : " It is, as you say, indeed unavoidable. A states- 
man stands on a hill. . lie looks farther in all directions than the 



A DEPRESSED -STATESMAN". 171 

people, who are standing at the base, can see. When he points out 
the course they ought to take for safety, they are suspicious that he 
is misdirecting them. When they have at last gained the summit 
from which he pointed the way, they then correct their misjudg- 
ment. But this, although it may be sufficient for them, comes too 
late for the statesman." 

Wan-Siang seemed to avoid contested questions, like a sick man 
who is warned against excitement. He turned the conversation 
upon Prince Kung's admiration for Mr. Seward, and disappoint- 
ment in failing to meet him at the foreign office, and his purpose 
still to do so when recovered from his illness. Wan-Siang then 
fell into lamentations over his own prostrate health, and expressed 
himself despondingly concerning the future of China. After an 
exchange of courtesies he withdrew, leaving on Mr. Seward's mind 
the painful impression that Wan-Siang would die, before many 
years, of a broken heart. 

On inquiring the cause of Wan-Siang's mental depression, Mr. 
Seward learned that it is due to the defeat of his plans for the col- 
lege which he had mentioned. It is only just, however, to say 
that a more hopeful view of that great and beneficent project is 
entertained, not only by intelligent foreigners residing here, but by 
Wan-Siang's associates in the Government. 

If we have exhausted the sights and wonders of Peking during 
our stay, certainly the city seems unconscious of it. The wretched 
streets have become a little less muddy, and the general aspect 
more cheerful, than when we came here ten days ago. 



CHAPTER IX. 

VISIT TO THE GREAT WALL. 

Preparations for the Trip. — Our Vehicles. — The Summer Palace. — Pagodas. — First Night 
under a Chinese Roof. — A Chinese Tavern. — Approach to the Great Wall. — The 
Mongolians. — The Cost of the Wall. — Inquisitive Chinese. — The Second Wall. — The 
Ming Tombs. — A Misguided Mule. 

JSyden, November YZtli. — Peking is on the parallel of 39° 54'. 
The point of the Great Wall which we propose to visit is in a direct 
north line about forty miles distant, on an elevation of two thou- 
sand feet above the city. This altitude has a climatic effect of nearly 
seven degrees of latitude. The climate there may therefore be un- 
derstood to be about the same in relation to Peking as the climate 
of Lake Superior is to that of New York. We provided against in- 
clemency by a supply of furs and braziers. What with our strange 
catskin caps, long foxskin coats, and high white felt boots, we 
scarcely claimed to know each other. The obstacles to the excur- 
sion have not been over-estimated. They were not, however, of a 
political nature, like those which opposed our journey to Peking. 
They are chiefly material and local. Our arrangements were made 
several days in advance, with Chinese common carriers, for the 
necessary litters, carts, mules, donkeys, drivers, and attendants. On 
the afternoon of the tenth, we saw with our own eyes a combined 
force of men and beasts enter the court ready to be caparisoned 
and packed during the night to start on the next day, just as soon 
as Wan-Siang's expected visit should be over. It was not, how- 



A CHINESE CART. 



173 



ever, until eight o'clock last.night that it was announced to us, not 
only that the necessary complement of litters had not been ob- 
tained, but also that they could not be procured in the city that 
day. We acquiesced with such- grace as we could, and appointed a 
new hour for departure, namely, six o'clock this morning. 

We determined to retire early, Mrs. Low's ball to the contrary 
notwithstanding. In vain was that " net spread in sight of these 
birds." We rose at five o'clock. All the mules that had been 
gathered the day before had been taken away during the night to 
their customary stables. There was not one animal in the court- 
yard. At eight o'clock two mules were lacking, but they had been 




CHINESE OAET. 



sent for. At nine, one of the mules which remained was taken 
sick and was sent away to the hospital. At ten, it was replaced. 
At half-past ten, the driver fell suddenly ill, and was sent home 



174: 



JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



unfit for duty. At noon, after we had been sitting three hours 
closely packed in our litters, the great gate opened, and the long 
procession, which, though a motley one, was completely organized, 
moved out. The roads we are to travel do not allow the use of 
sedan-chairs. Only mandarins are allowed the privilege of travel- 
ling in mule-litters. Inferior persons are by the Board of Rites 




THE LITTER. 



confined to the use of the heavy, two-wheeled, close-covered mule- 
cart, indulgently called by Mr. Pumpelly " a carriage." The cara- 
van consists of eight covered litters for the less vigorous members 
of the party. Each litter is borne by two mules harnessed between 
the shafts, one before and one behind the litter. Each litter has an 
extra mule for occasional service. It has also a driver on foot and 
a muleteer on a donkey. Then there are six carts, each drawn by 
one mule, and attended by a driver who walks. All the animals 



THE TEMPLE OF THE GEEAT BELL. 175 

wear tinkling bells, which give warning to all camel-drivers and 
whomsoever else it may concern, that a wide berth is required by 
the ostentatious occupants of the litters. Our way out of the city 
was through the North Gate. It brought in review, as we passed, 
the wayside traffic and street amusements of this singular people. 
Every thing to eat, to drink, and to wear, is prepared and sold in 
booths, and every thing needful in daily life and death, including 
coffins, is made and mended there. These booths are interspersed 
at short distances with theatres, show-rooms, and gambling-dens. 
Yon see an hourly performance of Punch with a pigtail, and Judy 
with cramped feet, thimblerig, harlequin, cards, dice, and magic. 
Occasionally we meet a lady " of the better sort," closely cushioned 
in a sedan-chair, more frequently " other women," with or without 
children, heaped and packed in horrible carts. Only virtuous and 
respectable people are allowed this indulgence. These women are 
gayly dressed, painted white and red, and wear large chrysanthe- 
mums, or rosettes, in their hair. The very few women whom we 
pass in the streets are accounted both vulgar and vicious. The 
booths and theatre were not the only obstacles in our line of 
march. We jostled against long camel-caravans ; funeral-proces- 
sions, which, by the affectation of solemnity, made a mockery of 
death ; and wedding-processions, which, without a pretence to re- 
finement or delicacy, make the marriage ceremony a vulgar spec- 
tacle. At Ta-tsoon-tsa, a dull and cheerless suburb, two miles be- 
yond the gate, we halted for refreshments, at the Buddhist temple 
of the Great Bell. 

In China, temples and Buddhist monasteries are freely opened 
for the entertainment of travellers. Two monks assisted our ser- 
vants in preparing lunch. The Temple of the Great Bell is humble 
compared with those in the city, but, although much dilapidated, is 
in a more cleanly condition than any we have seen in China. It 
rejoices in one of eight immense bronze bells which were cast 
at Peking in the year 1400 of our era, by the Emperor Yung-Lo. 
It is of the ordinary bell-shape, eighteen feet high, with a mouth 
thirty-six feet in circumference. It has a small, circular apercure 
at the top, adapted to the apparatus for suspending the bell. It is 



176 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



literally covered inside and out with raised texts in very small 
Chinese characters, in all numbering, it is claimed, eighty-four 




SUMMEE PALACE. 



thousand. The bell is made to sound by being beaten with a heavy 
wooden club. 

A further drive of six miles brought us to the Yuen -Min- Yuen, 
familiarly called the Emperor's Summer Palace. Since the time 
of the Ming dynasty, Yuen-Min-Yuen was the Versailles of China 
until 1860, when it was sacked, plundered, and destroyed, by the 
British and French allied armies in their advance on Peking. It 
is not in our. way now to describe its former glory, or to relate the 
story of its catastrophe. We must be content in writing what we 
see and how we see it. The grounds of Yuen-Min-Yuen are an 
area of twelve square miles. It once contained thirty extensive 
and costly palaces used by the emperor and court. The invaders 
related that the architecture, furniture, and embellishments of 



CANALS OF THE SUMMER PALACE. 



177 



Yuen-Min-Yuen, as they found it, were a happy and effective com- 
bination of Oriental and Western luxury and elegance. Many 

streams, gathered on adjacent 
mountain-slopes, are brought 
into large artificial lakes, and 
thence distributed by deep 
and clear canals through the 
grounds, and then used equal- 
ly for pleasure, navigation, 
and irrigation. The canals, 
after performing these serv- 
ices, unite and flow through 
a broad and deep canal into 
Peking, where they constitute 
the great and picturesque lake 
which we have before men- 
tioned as the finest ornament 
of the imperial city. While 
the canals have been built 
with excellent masonry, they 
are crossed with graceful mar- 
ble bridges in various direc- 
tions. The fields, meadows, 
and lawns, are fertile, but 
now in a condition of com- 
plete neglect and waste. At 
the centre of the plain a cir- 
cular rocky islet rises abrupt- 
ly to a height of two hun- 
dred and fifty feet. This arti- 
ficial hill is traced with spiral 
terraces which fascinate the 
visitor by continually bring- 
ing into view palaces, pavil- 
ions, pagodas, temples, all 
half concealed by hanging 




178 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

gardens and groves, which are embellished with fountains, statuary, 
and shrines. The summit is crowned with an imperial summer- 
house in the Italian style, its wall richly frescoed, and its roof 
glistening with blue and yellow porcelain. One of the delights of 
Yuen -Min- Yuen was a unique temple, wrought of polished bronze, 
standing on the acclivity of this islet. "We shall never weary of 
the Chinese pagoda. One of those at Yuen-Min-Yuen, which, with 
the temple last mentioned, preserves much of its form and beauty, is 
a gem of that sort of structures. It is of slender proportions, and 
built entirely of porcelain of variegated colors. There must have 
been a time when the sculptor of China, while he disdained to copy 
foreign models, had learned how to bring Greek and Roman taste 
and art to give effect to national designs. Although the lions, the 
sphinxes, and the dragons, which are profusely displayed here, are 
imaginative conceptions, any one of them would, by its exquisite 
execution, excite admiration in Europe. 

The destruction of this magnificent palace by the allies presents 
one of those painful subjects concerning which agreement can never 
be expected between the generous and the unsympathetic portions 
of mankind. The allies say that the demolition was a just and even 
necessary retaliation against the emperor for the cruelty practised 
by the Chinese Government toward Sir Harry Parkes. The friends 
of art throughout the world will agree with the Chinese scholars 
and statesmen, who complain that the destruction of these ancient 
and ornamental palaces, with the plunder of their stores of art, was 
useless to the invaders, and therefore indefensible. For our own 
part, we have always thought that the British army might have 
spared the Capitol and the presidential mansion in 1814; and we 
now think that the allies might have spared Yuen-Min-Yuen. 
However this may be, the fact remains that the Emperor of China, 
ruler of the oldest monarchy in the world, is the only sovereign 
who is confined to a single residence, and that in the heart of a 
crowded and walled city. The ruins are now without tenants, as 
the temples are without priests or worshippers. Speculators and 
adventurers boldly barter for the disfigured statuary and for the 
polished capitals, shafts, and pedestals, of the bronze temple. The 



THE DECAY OF CHINA. 179 

roads are impassable, the marble bridges broken down, the canals 
choked, the gardens, groves, and walks, have become devastated, and 
the plain itself is fast becoming a stagnant marsh. Washington, 
Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow, have repaired the disasters they have 
respectively suffered, but the Chinese Government has no resources 
or spirit for renovation. The decay of Ynen-Min-Yuen must, 
therefore, continue until these " round and splendid " gardens shall 
become a maze as unintelligible to the traveller as the palace of the 
Caesars at Home. 

It remains to be said that these imperial pleasure-resorts were 
surrounded by populous cities and villages, whose inhabitants 
derived their living from ministering to the needs and pleasures 
of the court. These cities and villages are now abandoned to bats 
and vermin. 

Arriving here after dark, we brought our long and bizarre pro- 
cession to a halt in the open streets, because the court -yard of the 
inn would not hold litters and carts with the teams attached. It 
is hard to say how either Mr. Seward or the ladies could have been 
able to alight and thread their way among the busy, curious crowd 
which thronged the narrow, crooked streets, but for the assistance 
of Admiral Eoclgers and the consul-general. We came in safely, 
however, to have our first experience of lodging under a Chinese 
roof. 

Nan-How, November loth. — The mule litter is comfortable, 
and its movement easy, but it makes only two miles an hour. 
The " cribbed, cabined, and confined," solitary occupant finds 
the travel tedious. We have learned, however, to relieve the 
weariness by occasional changes with the muleteer and the donkey- 
driver. 

The first part of our journey to-day was over a level table-land. 
The road has been only a narrow, uneven, stony path, impassable 
with any vehicle other than those we have chosen. During the 
last two hours, we have climbed six hundred feet of the mountain 
slope, and have reached the foot of the Nan-Kow Pass, up which 
we must go to reach the Great Wall. With the usual ruggedness 



180 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



of mountain scenery, no part of the country affords any relief to 
the general aspect of desolation. Fahrenheit 32°. 




~Wl «~- 



NAN-KOW PASS. 



With few exceptions, the houses here are built of adobe, with 
thatched roofs, and only one story high. Our inn is of this sort, 
and consists of a low range of very small apartments, built against 
the wall on the four inner sides of a large, unpaved square. We 
have to-night, as last night, secured the entire inn. Entering from 
the street, we have on that side of the square a row of apartments 
which are divided by the gate. On the right of the gate are the 
rooms, or offices, occupied by the manager or keeper of the inn, 
where orders are received. On the left, a kitchen, or a series of 
immense cooking-houses, where victuals are cooked after the Chinese 



A CHINESE INK 181 

fashion, sufficient, we should think, to supply the whole town. It is 
marvellous what economy of fuel, labor, and provisions, this kitchen 
exhibits. The guest at the inn may supply himself from it or not, 
as he pleases. Perhaps, it is needless to say that foreigners never 
do. Proceeding through the square, we have on one side a row 
of apartments just like the others, which are promiscuously used, 
according to the exigencies of the occasion, for stables or lodging- 
rooms. At the farther side of the square are four rooms of the 
same sort, which we have appropriated for parlor, dining-room, and 
sleeping-apartments. On the other side of the square, a similar 
series of accommodations for man and beast. The animals, drivers, 
and attendants are disposed of in their lodgings and stables, accord- 
ing to their tastes. The litters and carts with their clumsy, ragged 
harness block up the court-yard, so that there is no getting across 
it or through it, without a guide and a lantern. Our own apart- 
ments, though we have called them by names which designate the 
uses to which we have appropriated them, are all alike. There is 
no corridor or veranda within or without, and so no communica- 
tion between them except through the open court-yard. The rooms 
are about ten feet square and seven feet high ; the floors of uneven, 
disjointed flat stones, and they seem to have been never washed or 
swept. The doors are rude, full of crevices, and without fastenings. 
One small window in each room has a sash, covered, or meant to 
be covered, with dingy, torn, oiled paper. We do not know how 
nor where the manager of the inn procured the one table and chair 
with which he has furnished our chosen dining-room. Our servants 
have hired utensils in the kitchen to prepare our supper. Our bags 
and cloaks supply the deficiency of chairs. Across one entire end 
of each apartment is a brick platform, raised eighteen inches above 
the stone floor. Under this platform is a sunken furnace with 
reverberatory flues, so placed as to heat every part of the surface. 
The platform thus heated, and called the hang, is the common bed- 
stead of the apartment, and the bamboo-mat spread over it is the 
common bed. A good fire being built in the kang in the evening, 
it retains its heat generally during the night. You may, however, 
replenish it at your pleasure. The bedstead accommodates, if neces- 



1S2 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

sary, ten persons, who stretch themselves out upon it side by side, 
without making any change of clothing, wrapping themselves in 
their sheep-skin jackets. 

"We, of course, have a separate room for each of our party. Our 
servants have brought in the cushions, blankets, and furs, from our 
litters, and with these, by the aid of our dressing-cases, we are able 
to make a pretence of toilets. We have even extemporized cur- 
tains, which are close, though not of damask. The kang is throw- 
ing out a genial heat through the room. We lie down upon it, 
with the stars twinkling brightly through the broken paper panes 
of the only window. 

November lMh, Morning. — Our mules are not reliable for the 
part of our journey which remains. We have ordered mountain- 
chairs and coolies, and while they are coming we have made a 
complete tour of the inn. In the East, the travellers are generally 
merchants or government agents. As there are no carriage-roads, 
every one uses one, two, three, or more beasts. Forage is cum- 
brous, and therefore becomes the most serious care of the inn- 
keeper. Dwellers in the East invariably live in close intimacy 
with their beasts ; hence cleanliness is a virtue scarcely known. 
The inn, which last night seemed to us not absolutely destitute of 
comfort, this morning is offensive and disgusting. 

Nan-Kow, November 14cth, Evening. — AVe have done it! We 
have seen the Great Wall. We have scaled its rampart, walked 
through its gates, examined its bastions, trodden its parapet, looked 
off from its battlements, and rested under its shade. Regarding 
this as the greatest achievement of our journey thus far, we should 
desire to set down minutely and deliberately each one of its inci- 
dents ; but, hurried as we are by threatening winter, we have only 
time to describe the prominent features, and record an occasional 
thought. 

China might be designated as a country of fortifications and 
walls. Without being aware of this, we have already mentioned 
the walls of Shanghai, Tien-Tsin, Tung-Chow, and the triple walls 



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fill ■ i " 1 ' " ;i 

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life 



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THE CITY OF KA.N-KOW. 



183 



of tlie city of Peking. This little city of ISTan-Kow has fortifications 
adequate to the largest garrison. Inscriptions on the gate-ways and 
arches in four different dialects, Mongolian, Mantchoorian, Chinese, 
and Thibetian, besides another dialect which is no longer extant, 
prove the great antiquity of these structures. Besides these fortifi- 
cations, Nan-Kow is encircled by a wall which stretches over hill 
and valley in such a way that, while it is no longer useful for any 
purpose of defence, one cannot but hope that it may be preserved 




GATE AT NAN-KOW. 



for picturesque effect. Thus we seem here not to be seeing the 
present China, but the China of the past. 

From the very gate of !Nan-Kow, we found neither regular 
road, nor marked nor beaten track, but a ravine, which, in the 



184 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

lapse of ages, a torrent lias excavated down the mountain, falling a 
thousand feet in a distance of twelve miles. Our upward way lay- 
in the rugged furrow of this torrent. Each passenger was lashed 
tightly in his "mountain" chair, which is simply an arm-chair 
mounted on two shafts, and borne by four coolies, his safety de- 
pending on the tenacity with which his feet press against a swing- 
ing board suspended before him from the shafts. The coolies pick 
their way by crossing from one side to the other over uneven, 
broken bowlders and rocks, and through deep gullies. The passen- 
ger at one moment is in danger of slipping out backward from his 
chair, at another of being thrown out one side or the other, and 
again of being dashed headlong on the rocks before him. In some 
places the torrent is dry, in others the coolies are slipping over 
treacherous ice, or splashing through pools of water among rounded 
pebbles and sharp rocks ; in short, over every thing but dry earth. 
Steep mountains exclude the sun's light and heat at nearly all hours 
of the day. Those mountains are timberless, tenantless, dry, and 
brown. The geological formation of the pass is an alternation of 
granite, gneiss, red and yellow sandstone, porphyry, and marble. 

Having said that our road has none of the qualities and condi- 
tions of a thoroughfare, it will seem strange when we now say that 
at intervals we encounter, through the whole pass, blocks of hewn 
and polished marble, with other debits of pavements, culverts, 
bridges, arches, and gates, indicating that it was once a military 
road superior to the Appian Way of Rome. 

Only Love, that "laughs at locksmiths," could maintain his 
sway in this dreary region. We met, in one of the most fearful 
gorges, a magnificent crimson wedding-car, which was coming 
down from Kiakhta, to receive a bride at Peking. We encounter 
on the way a class of travellers that we have not before met. They 
come not in sedan-chairs, mule-litters, or carts, but on horses, cam- 
els, and donkeys ; and of these there is an endless procession. The 
beasts are loaded with wheat, barley, hemp, flax, and wool. Thirty 
camels make up a single train. One man leads each six of the 
beasts by means of a cord to which the halter of each is attached. 
Rocking from side to side, and unceasingly chewing their cuds 



THE MONGOLIANS. 185 

as they move slowly along, they excite interest by their patience, 
docility, and perseverance. Rough and vehement as the camel- 
driver seems, we have not seen him inflict a blow, or utter a word 
of impatience toward the gentle beasts. 

Another class of travellers are herdsmen. Mongolia and 
Mantchooria, beyond the Great Wall, are pasturages, and the 
flocks of sheep and herds of cattle which are raised there are 
brought chiefly through this pass, to be spread over the great 
plain of North China. 

The Mongolians dress altogether in furs and skins. They have 
an air of independence and intelligence not observable in China 
proper. The women are particularly strong, and, as we judge 
from their manner, entirely free. Their furs are richer than those 
of the men, and they wear a profusion of silver ornaments on the 
forehead, wrist, and ankle, as well as suspended from their ears 
and nose. They travel with their husbands, who divide with them 
the care of the children. If it is discouraging to some at home to 
wait for the restoration of woman's rights, it is pleasant to find her 
in the full enjoyment of them here, in spite of Oriental prejudices 
and superstitions. The mountain-cliffs are ornamented at conven- 
ient and prominent points with pretty temples and unique shrines, 
and pious devices and legends are carved on what seem to be in- 
accessible basaltic rocks. But the temples and shrines, no longer 
attended by votaries, are falling into ruin. 

Reaching at length the source of the mountain-torrent which 
has made such fearful devastation, we found ourselves in a dell 
surrounded by mountains, and from their crests the Great Wall 
encircling and frowning down upon us. Our chairmen at once, 
with renewed vigor and elasticity, carried us up a rugged declivity 
of a quarter of a mile, clambering over shivered and shattered 
rocks, and set us down within a redoubt at the very base of the 
wall, three hundred feet above the dell which we had left. The 
wall varies in height from twenty-five to fifty feet. The base here, 
twenty feet high, is built of solid, hewn granite. 

We were not long in ascending the well-preserved flight of 
stone steps which led to the parapet. The top of the wall is 



186 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

wide enough for two carriages to pass. From the parapet we con- 
templated the conquered China of the past, which was below us, 
and the conquering Tartary of the past, which was above us, both 
now under one regime, and constituting one vast, but crumbling 
empire. In the embrasures of the parapet we found, here and 
there, a cast-iron grooved cannon of four-pound calibre. It passed 
our comprehension to conceive when it was put there, or for what 
purpose. We entered a watch-tower on our left, and saw, at a dis- 
tance of forty miles, murky Peking. 

The Great Wall crosses twenty-one degrees of longitude from 
the Pacific coast to the desert border of Thibet, and with its wind- 
ings has a length of from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred miles. 
It seems almost incredible that this gigantic structure, the greatest 
fortification that has been built by human hands, could have been 
raised in the short space of about twenty years. Yet history 
assures us that Chin-Wangti began the work in the year 240 b. c, 
and finished it in 220 b. c. Nor is the perfection of the work less 
wonderful than the dispatch with which it was built. Although it 
here and there exhibits crumbling arches and falling ramparts, it 
nevertheless stands more firmly and in better preservation than 
any ancient structure, except perhaps the Pyramids. Very slight 
repairs would restore it to its original state. 

" Admiral Rodgers," said Mr. Seward, as we leaned against the 
immovable parapet, " will you take your pencil and make an esti- 
mate of the comparative cost of constructing a mile of this wall, at 
the present day, with that of a mile of the Pacific Pailroad % " 

The two gentlemen went through the process together, and 
agreed in the result that the cost of building such a wall as this, in 
the United States to-day, would exceed the entire cost of all the 
railroads in that country. 

" I never before," said Mr. Seward, " found myself in a position 
so suggestive of reflection. This great monument tells, in brief, the 
history of China. Aboriginal tribes of the Mongolian race, forty 
or fifty centuries ago, left cold and' sterile homes in the north, 
spread themselves over the southeastern portion of the continent 
of Asia, established there a kingdom, and built up a prosperous and 



KEFLECTIONS ON THE GEEAT WALL. 187 

highly-refined state. They were annoyed by incursions and dep- 
redations from the same northern steppes which they had left 
behind them, just as England was so long annoyed by incursions 
and depredations of the Picts and Scots, Danes and Saxons. Chin- 
"Wangti, king of civilized China, built this great wall to protect the 
country against those nomadic tribes. The completion of so great 
a work justified him in laying aside the modest title of king, and 
assuming the more ambitious one of emperor — the first emperor 
of China. It is not an unimportant consideration that the culmina- 
tion of the Chinese Empire, marked by the construction of the Great 
Wall, was coincident with the decline of Grecian arts and arms and 
with the establishment of Roman empire on the western shores of 
Asia. The Great "Wall served its purpose through the period of 
fourteen hundred years. But, during this time, wealth and luxury 
increased in China, while moral vigor declined. An enervated state 
provoked the rapacity of its neighbors. Kublai-Khan effected a 
combination of all the Tartar and Mongolian hordes of the north. 
They forced the wall, conquered and enslaved China. Chinese 
morals and manners, however, subdued and modified the character 
of their conquerors. The wall ceased to be needful, because the 
Chinese and Tartars became reconciled, assimilated, and contented, 
under the sway of the Mantchoorian dynasty. How little can 
human foresight ever penetrate the remote future ! How little 
Chin-"Wangti understood of the fate of the Great "Wall. Is it not 
well that human power cannot bind or control for an indefinite 
future the destinies of any nation % " 

Occupied with such reflections as these, we took no note of the 
hours until the shadows began to fall, and the wind became cold 
and bleak. "We descended and sat at the base of the rampart, 
where we found a dinner spread upon an uneven table of broken 
granite blocks. 

" Admiral," said Mr. Seward, " our Government informed me, 
when I was coming abroad, that you were instructed to show me 
courteous attentions, if I should be so fortunate as to meet you in 
Asiatic waters. You have executed these instructions in a manner 
equally considerate and kind. You not only received me at 



188 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Shanghai with the usual naval demonstrations of respect, but, with 
your official staff, you have accompanied me, in the character of a 
protector as well as a friend, through the stormy Yellow Sea, the 
agitated political scenes of Tien-Tsin, up the tedious Pei-ho, over 
the desolate plains of Tung-Chow to Peking, and from there to the 
Great Wall, where we can look back together on the declining 
power of China, and forward to the coming of Western civilization 
from the shores of our own country to the Asiatic coast." 

The admiral replied : " I have esteemed myself fortunate, as 
well as happy, in having had an opportunity of attending you to 
Peking and the Great Wall — fortunate in having your ripe and 
varied experience to assist me in forming opinions, and in drawing 
deductions from what I have seen ; happy in the continual familiar 
intercourse with me whom it is not only a duty, but a pleasure, to 
honor. Truly do I hope that your health may continue no less 
robust, and your endurance no less marked, than in our rough ex- 
perience together, and that your personal observations in other 
climes, of other peoples, may not be of less interest and benefit to 
mankind than those you make here." 

Our party broke into detachments and all communications be- 
tween its members ceased. What a lonely tramp did we now have ! 
At length we reached the half-way coolie station. There the 
bearers set us down outside, while they went into the huts to re- 
fresh. Half a dozen men and boys came around the ladies' chairs, 
and proceeded to examine their dresses, unable to determine 
whether the habiliments were those of man or woman. Well they 
might be perplexed. The Astrakhan cap might be worn by either. 
The long, heavy fox-skin coat and white mandarin boots were 
equally perplexing. They drew the gloves from off the fingers. 
These rudenesses were disturbing enough, but at last became unen- 
durable when they thrust their fingers into the hair, and offered 
their filthy pipes, inviting a general smoke. Just then, when the 
ladies seemed to have passed completely beyond the society of their 
own race, they heard the shrill voice of a baby within the hut, crying 
not especially in the Chinese language, but in the universal dialect 
of infancy, with the response of the soothing lullaby of the mother, 



THE MING TOMBS. 



189 



equally natural. These incidents reassured the ladies, and showed 
them that the Chinese are yet human, and they gave over all 
thoughts of fear and torment. 

After a march of three more tedious hours, we have reached the 
same wretched inn which we left this morning. We conclude the 
notes of our journey by mentioning that, a thousand years, more or 
less, after the wall was built by Chin-Wangti, a second one was 
built for greater security, at the eastern end, forty miles south of 
the original one, both of which remain standing. It is this second 
wall last built, but similar to and constituting a part of the original 
system of defence, that we have visited. 

Ming Tombs, November 15th. — Resuming our litter, and. mov- 
ing early this morning, we came down from the mountain terrace, 
and entered a smooth, level, circular plain, seeming more like a 
bay which indents a high, rocky coast, than the amphitheatre of 
landscape and mountain which it is. The terrace which surrounds 
the plain was chosen by the emperors of the Ming dynasty for an 




GATEWAY AT MING TOMBS. 



190 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

imperial cemetery. It is divided into thirteen areas, seemingly of 
equal extent. Each of these areas is covered with luxuriant gar- 
dens, out of the midst of which rises a magnificent mausoleum, 
called here a temple, but which is in fact a tomb. Dr. "Williams 
tells us that "Ming" means "bright." The "Bright" dynasty 
flourished from the close of the fourteenth to the middle of the seven- 
teenth century. Nanking, for a time the capital, has a cemetery 
of the earlier rulers of that dynasty. But we understand that it is 
not so well preserved as this. 

All the tombs are of one type. "We visited that of Yung Lo, 
one of the most distinguished of the emperors of China. His 
decrees of laws and manners, grounded on the writings of Con- 
fucius, with some alteration, constitute even now the code of the 
Chinese Empire. "We sat down here to rest in an ancient grove of 
persimmons, live-oaks, acacias, and cypresses. 

"It seems," said Mr. Seward, "that it is not until society 
reaches a high state of civilization in any country that it learns the 
absurdity of sepulchral monuments. Great achievements and rare 
virtues leave an impression upon mankind so deep, that they need 
no monumental reminder, while the attempt to supply the want of 
that impression by extravagant art is a mockery." But let us see 
how the Chinese of the past ages honored their illustrious dead. It 
is manifest that the device of a series of concentric structures, rising 
one above the other, is a favorite form of Chinese architecture. 
This vast monument contains five courts, one within the other. 
The structures are two temples, disconnected and distant from 
each other, but essentially alike in design and construction — the 
outer one serving as a vestibule to the inner or principal one. 
This inner temple, with its red walls and its plain balustrades and 
railings, is in form and style quite like the great Temple of Con- 
fucius at Peking. Its proportions are equally grand, tasteful, and 
simple. Its massive yellow-porcelain roof, with its bright green- 
and-gold ceiling, rests upon two rows of wooden columns, of which 
there are thirty in each — the columns fifty feet high, with a 
diameter of four feet at the base. Behind the temple and in the 
fourth court stands an uncovered altar, the top of which is a mono- 



THE TOMB OF YUNG LO. 191 . 

lith measuring twenty -two feet by five feet. Directly behind the 
altar is a pagoda of three stories. Entering this pagoda through 
an arched door, you confront a large tablet of red and gold, which 
covers the remains of Yung Lo. You then ascend not a staircase, 
but a long and winding inclined plane, some sixty feet, to the sec- 
ond story. This second story rises seventy feet; in the centre 
of this is a smaller tablet, like the one in the first story. The third 
story, reached in the same way, is an open space under the roof. 

Although we observe, in these buildings and grounds, marks of 
care and attention not elsewhere seen in China, there is neverthe- 
less painful evidence that the work of dilapidation has begun even 
here. 

The path by which we reached the cemetery was an indirect 
one. Contrary to usage, therefore, we made our exit instead of our 
entrance by the avenue designed for approach from Peking. This 
avenue is twenty-two miles long, well graded, and originally was 
paved in the most substantial manner. This road descends from 
the tomb-covered terrace upon the level plain, at a distance of one 
mile from the tomb of Yung Lo. Here it crosses a stream or 
canal by a noble marble bridge, not wholly ruined. This bridge is 
graced with what is here called the honorary arch, a majestic gate- 
way, built not for use but for effect, like the triumphal arches of 
Rome or Paris. A mile farther the road leaves the level plain 
under a similar arch. Having passed these gates, we found the 
avenue adorned, for the length of a whole mile, by a row, on either 
side, of gigantic granite figures. "Whoever may read these notes 
will remember that the proper order of these colossal figures is 
the reverse of that in which we passed them. First, we came be- 
tween two rows of statues representing philosophers and moralists, 
four on each side of the way. Then four generals, arranged in like 
manner on each side, then four priests, then four ministers or 
statesmen. These figures are about twelve feet high, their costume 
Chinese. By their attitude and expression they seem to point with 
silent homage to the tombs of the great beyond. Next we pass in 
review a double row of equally colossal horses, four on each side, 

two of them resting on their haunches, and two erect ; next ele- 
16 



192 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



pliants erect, and elephants in a sitting posture : then camels 
standing and camels couchant ; then lions rampant and lions 
asleep ; then buffaloes standing and at rest ; then asses, and at 
the end rhinoceroses. Here two arches of honor, like those at the 
other end of the avenue, open on unconsecrated ground. Though 
the sculpture must have been executed three hundred years ago, it 
excels much of the statuary found in the public grounds at Wash- 
ington, and is very effective. Of this we have evidence so strong 
that we. should be afraid to produce it, if there were not a cloud of 





MMfcftfW 



AVENUE TO Tilt MING TOMBS. 



witnesses to verify it. "We give their names — the Admiral, the 
Consul-General, John Middleton, Esq., Alfred Rodinan, Esq., and 
William Freeman. Here is the evidence : The lean lead mule 
of Mr. Seward's litter is a large, strong, spirited beast. Although 
he had given proofs of this many times by stentorian braying, ex- 
pressive of discontent and obstinacy, yet he made the journey 
from Peking to Nan-Kow, and through the sacred groves of the 
Ming tombs, without any especial fractiousness. But he was only 
reserving himself for a display on the grand avenue. Even here 



PEACES OF A MULE. 193 

lie made no demonstration at the magnificent marble bridge. He 
passed meekly under the double arches of honor. He turned 
neither to the right nor to the left, to pay. homages to either colos- 
sal philosophers, generals, priests, or statesmen. He even passed 
the recumbent horses on both sides of him without turning his head 
or pricking up his ears. But the first great stone horse standing 
erect, on the left, proved too much for the equanimity of the mule. 
Perceiving that statue at a distance of three or four rods, he broke 
all of a sudden from his lazy walk into a sharp trot, discarding his 
driver and dragging the rear mule behind him ; regardless that, 
in the litter which he bore, was seated the venerated chief of our 
party, he dashed furiously forward to the granite horse, and, throw- 
ing his head upward, presented his broad, graceless mouth to the 
more stubborn jaw of the statue. The muleteers, alarmed by this 
strange performance, cried out with dismay, and the gentlemen 
hastened to rescue Mr. Seward from being dashed against the figure. 
Happily, at this moment, the muleteers seized the brute by the 
head, in the act of saluting his ancient and unappreciative distant 
relation, and buffeted him away. He yielded, but not without a 
shaking of the ears, and an unearthly complaint from the lungs, 
which left no one in doubt that the animal thought he was unrea- 
sonably deprived of a just and rational pleasure. 

Though not yet qualified for comparing the Imperial Cemetery 
of China with the sepulchral architecture of other countries, we 
may nevertheless venture to say that the impressive and suggestive 
avenue of approach, the spaciousness of the grounds, the severe 
exclusion of all foreign or incongruous objects, the drawing into 
contrast mountain and plain with ancient groves, and natural 
rivulets with arched bridges, the magnificence and elegance of the 
temples, and the simplicity and durability of the memorial tablets, 
constitute an extraordinary and masterly combination. Whatever 
may be the historical merit of the Ming emperors whose ashes are 
deposited in those tombs, no one can leave the place doubting that 
the honors they have received here are such as are due to bene- 
factors of mankind. 



CHAPTER X. 

LAST DAYS IN FEEING. 

Cham-Ping-Chow. — A Chinese Inn. — The Roman Catholics in China. — The Cathedral. — 
The Tien-Tsin Massacre. — Christian Policy. — Interview with Robert Hart. — A Letter 
from Sun-Tajen and Chi-Tajen. — Letter from Prince Kung. — Interview with the 
Prince. — The Prince's Present. — Departure from Peking. 

Peking, November 16th. — We passed the night at Cham-Ping- 
Chow, a town of considerable activity. Our inn was such a one as 
we could procure exclusively without giving previous notice. Our 
guides say there are some that are better. We are quite sure there 
are none which can be worse. But, if we fare badly in Chinese inns, 
we have the consolation of knowing that we fare cheaply. We do 
not know what were the bills of our coolies for man and beast. 
They could not have been extravagant, for the entire compensation 
which we have paid to them for the journey to Peking to the 
wall and back again is only ten dollars for each litter and cart. 
The expenses of our party of ten at the inn was three Mexican 
dollars for all, of which seventy-five cents was paid for extra fuel 
for the kang. The impression made on us, by the conduct of the 
people who came under our observation, does not go to confirm the 
belief that they are either hostile or prejudiced against foreigners, 
while it does satisfy us that they are punctual and exact in the 
fulfilment of their contracts. The mercury has fallen to 26°. 

November 17th. — By the laws of China, the Roman Catholic 
religion is tolerated here. That Church has on paper divided the 



THE TIEN-TSIN" MASSACRE. 195 

empire into bishoprics and vicarates. It counts eight bishoprics or 
more, sixty foreign priests, one hundred and twenty native priests, 
and four hundred thousand native converts. 

We visited, to-day, the Cathedral at Peking. It is a fine, large, 
stone edifice, with an adjoining nunnery. The sisters are French 
and Irish. There is a large number of native servants. It seems 
quite apparent that converts are obtained as fast as the missionaries 
are able to furnish them employment and support, which is an 
indispensable condition. Native jealousy feeds on a tradition that 
the spacious grounds occupied by those institutions were obtained 
without equivalent. Nor does the same jealousy fail to take notice 
that the Church arrogates a right denied even to foreign embassies, 
of using the imperial yellow color in the ornamentation of its 
portals and walls. Sister Louise, lamented as the noblest and best 
beloved of the martyrs at Tien-Tsin, had arrived there just before 
the massacre. The sisters gave us relics of her. What shall we 
say concerning that terrible transaction ? 

It is right, just, and wise, that all the Christian nations shall 
mourn together over the victims, sympathize with the survivors, 
and unite in demanding such satisfaction from the Chinese Govern- 
ment as would afford security against a recurrence of persecution. 
But this has been already done as fully, it seems to us, as is possible. 
The Chinese Government has beheaded eighteen of the murderers, 
has provided for repairing and restoring the demolished buildings, 
and paid an indemnity of six hundred thousand taels for distribu- 
tion to the families of the victims. It has, moreover sent one of the 
most eminent statesmen of China, who is fully conversant with the 
details of the tragedy, to make such further explanations and give 
such further guarantees as the French Government may reasonably 
demand. The French minister here, under high excitement and 
with threats of war, demanded, besides those concessions, the heads 
of the two chief mandarins who were in authority at the time the 
massacre occurred. The Chinese Government brought those man- 
darins to trial. The charge of complicity was not sustained. 
Nevertheless the Government banished them for life, as a punish- 
ment for their imbecility. 



196 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

We know that here, as well as throughout Europe and the 
United States, it is alleged that these proceedings of the Chinese 
Government are fraudulent and evasive ; but we fail to find evi- 
dence of fraud, nor can we divine a motive for it. It is not to be 
forgotten that persecution of Christian missionaries, and especially 
persecution of Roman Catholic, is not exclusively confined to the 
Chinese. The Roman Catholic Church, with its high ecclesiastical 
pretensions, its monastical institutions, and its denial of the right 
of judgment by individual conscience, has come into conflict not 
only with the pagan systems of Asia, bat with the enlightened 
civilization of the age. Here, as in Europe and the United States, 
it has fallen, however undeservedly, under popular suspicion in 
two forms : first, a suspicion of political usurpation, that is to say, 
of an attempt to establish imperium in imperio ; second, the sus- 
picion of impurity of morals in celibate life. 

In which of the Western nations has the conflict between that 
Church and those who dissent from it been carried on without 
occasional riot, massacre, and martyrdom — not to speak of the 
religious wars which attended the Protestant Reformation ? In 
what Western nation did a government ever offer more effective 
or liberal reparation than that which the Chinese Government has 
given in this case ? It is not to be expected that the Protestant 
countries in the West, which have suppressed monastic institutions, 
and sequestered ecclesiastical estates, will sympathize with demands 
of France that shall go beyond a guarantee of rights and privileges 
for all Christians in China. Missionaries of all sects ought to re- 
member that, where the Gospel comes, there "it must needs be that 
offences come," nor should they forget that the command, " Go ye, 
therefore, and teach all nations," was accompanied by the warning 
injunction, not less sublime than the command itself, " Behold, I 
send you forth a^s sheep in the midst of wolves ; be ye therefore 
wise as serpents and harmless as doves." 

November ISth. — One of the most important incidents of our 
sojourn here was reserved for this morning. This was an interview 
with Mr. Robert Hart. Can any thing be more capricious than 



ME. ROBERT HART. 197 

international politics ? The British and French allies, after having 
pressed the empire to the verge, found it necessary all of a sudden 
to strike hands with the Government in its war with the rebels, in 
order to prevent a complete dissolution of society. With their aid, 
the Government effectually suppressed the rebellion. Then came 
the question of reimbursements and indemnities to be paid to the 
allies. The revenue system of China had become corrupt and 
effete. The Imperial Government could guarantee nothing. In 
this difficult conjuncture, a happy expedient was hit upon. The 
Government, with assurances of protection by Great Britain and 
France, consented to reorganize its customs revenue upon a Euro- 
pean basis, and confide it to the management of a European skilled 
in finance, who, with a staff of his appointment, half Chinese and 
half European, should fix a uniform rate of duties on foreign im- 
ports, collect them, pay the stipulated indemnities to the allies, and 
the surplus into the imperial treasury. That functionary, under the 
official title of inspector-general, is Mr. Robert Hart. "While the 
internal revenue system of China remains in a distracted and dilap- 
idated state, he has brought the customs department into a flourish- 
ing condition. He returned only to-day from a journey of inspec- 
tion of the open ports in distant parts of the empire. We found 
him a far-seeing and able statesman, having in finance, at least, 
something of the scope and capacity of Alexander Hamilton. But 
we reserve further remark on this system until we shall have 
studied its workings in the central and southern ports of the 
empire. 

A letter from our old friends Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen. If 
there is a discrepancy between their names as known to us and 
their autograph cards, it will be understood that the word " Tajen," 
which is affixed to their names, is a designation of rank, and not a 
proper name. Mr. Seward is here addressed, not by that name, but 
as Sew-Tajen. 

" To William H. Seward — 

" Sra : We arrived in Peking yesterday, from Tien-Tsin, and 
had earnestly desired to hasten to you, in order to express to you 



198 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

our great pleasure. But the trip up from Shanghai has been ex- 
ceedingly boisterous, making us very sick and giddy, so that we 
are altogether exhausted. Furthermore, we have not yet been able 
to submit a note requesting that we may be permitted to prostrate 
ourselves before the throne, and inquire for his Majesty's health, 
and procure a short leave of absence from the foreign office, which 
must be done through Prince Kung. It would be contrary to 
court usage to make a visit to you before having complied with that 
ceremony, even if we were not so completely prostrated that we 
could hardly do so, in a proper manner. 

" We sincerely wish to repair to your residence to thank you 
for all your generous and loving acts, which were so great and 
troublesome to you. But they are indelibly graven on our hearts, 
where they will remain forever. And how can we forget them ? 

" We wish that your happiness may never cease. 

(Cards) " Chih-Kang, 

" Sun-Chia-Kuh." 

November l§th. — On the 17th, international dinner and ball at 
the legation ; on the 18th, received visits from the foreign ladies 
residing in Peking, and, our time here growing short, we took 
sedan-chairs and returned the visits on the same day. This even- 
ing a letter was received from Prince Kung. 

" To William H. Sewakd, etc. 

" Sm : I have just heard that you and your party have returned 
from your trip to the country, and I have, with the officers of the 
foreign office, arranged to visit you to-morrow, at one o'clock, at 
the United States -legation. 

" I hope this hour will be agreeable to you all. 

" I beg to wish you daily peace." 

Autograph cards enclosed : 

" Prince Kung, " Pasyun, 

"' Yung-Stun, " Chln-Kiosifaw, 

" WaS-ChANG-HI, " YSUNG-LUN." 



PRINCE KUNG. 199 

November 20^A. — At one o'clock, Prince Kung, with the minis- 
ters of the foreign office, came, having previously sent in their 
cards according to the booh of rites. They came in chairs, and 
were received by the band at the entrance of the court, with a 
Chinese national air which they had learned for the occasion. The 
music, although by no means inspiring to us, seemed to please 
them. Mrs. Low, having first provided a table, half American, half 
Chinese, retired with the other ladies to an inner room, where they 
could observe, unobserved. The prince is the brother of the last 
emperor, and uncle of the present emperor, who is yet in his 
minority. The government of the empire is in the hands of the 
regency, consisting of the young emperor's mother and aunt, and 
Prince Kung. The two ladies take charge of the boy's person and 
education, while the prince exercises the sovereign political author- 
ity. All edicts, however, run in the name of the emperor, without 
any notice of the regency except the form of attestation. The 
female regents maintain strictly the reserve required of their sex, 
being never seen even by any minister of the government. When 
a decree is to be made, Prince Kung proceeds with the draught to 
the palace, and announces his presence before a curtain. The 
ladies then come ' behind the curtain, and receive and read the 
decree. They impress it with their seals. A eunuch delivers it 
to the prince, who, affixing his own seal, hands it to the "state- 
printer " in an outer chamber. Before he reaches his department, 
the decree is published and in circulation. 

The prince is tall and well-made, but does not impress one as 
especially intellectual. His manner is self-possessed and brusque, 
and he seems, even when practising the highest courtesy, like a 
person who is not accustomed to contradiction or dissent. He 
saluted Mr. Seward first in the Tartar fashion, by taking that 
gentleman's arms and hands into his own, with a friendly embrace. 
Our learned countryman, Dr. Martin, who acted as interpreter, 
mentioned to Mr. Seward that this treatment was in striking con- 
trast with the customary Chinese "touch-me-not" form of salutation 
of foreigners. The prince then earnestly expressed his satisfaction 
in the accomplishment of a wish he had long entertained, to see the 



200 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

face of his distinguished visitor. Mr. Seward requested him to sit, 
but he immediately rose, and apologized for his failure in keeping 
his previous appointment at the foreign office. He said that he 
had been, on that occasion, seized with a sudden illness, which had 
entirely disabled him from business for many days. 

Mr. Sewaed : " The anxiety I felt about you is happily relieved 
by seeing and knowing that you are well again." 

Peince Rung- : " My acquaintance with your Excellency began 
with our embassy to the United States and Europe, and I have 
many acknowledgments to make for the kindness and assistance 
our ministers received at your hands." 

Me. Sewaed : " ISTot at all, your Highness. Our Government 
welcomed that embassy as a harbinger of closer and more friendly 
relations between the United States and China." 

Peince Kung : " The relations of the two countries have always 
been amicable. I trust they will become still more intimate in 
future. As to our ministers on that occasion, their instructions 
were, to put themselves very much under the directions of your 
Excellency." 

Me. Sewaed : " On the arrival of the embassy, I conferred with 
them concerning the objects of their mission and their powers. I 
then prepared a draught of a treaty, which they amended. When 
the draught, as amended, had been approved by the President, I 
submitted it by telegraph to Great Britain, France, and Germany. 
When those nations had signified that such a treaty would be ac- 
ceptable to them, it was then signed by your ambassadors and by 
myself. This is the story of the ' Burlingame Treaty.' ' 

Prince Kung made a profound bow, and exclaimed : 

" What a pity that Mr. Burlingame was cut off by so untimely 
a fate, leaving his work unfinished ! " 

Me. Sewaed : " Mr. Burlingame' s work was so far accomplished 
that he exerted an influence which will never cease to be felt in the 
mutual intercourse of China and the Western nations. The termi- 
nation at any time of a life which had already become so successful 
and so useful, cannot be called premature." 

Peixce Kung : " Ah ! if others would adopt the principles 



CONVERSATION" WITH PRINCE RUNG. 201 

which are practised by your Government, it would be a great ad- 
vantage to us." 

Here, at Mr. Low's invitation, the party took seats at the table — 
the prince at the left, with Mr. Seward next his Highness ; Ysung- 
Lun, senior Minister of the Board of Foreign Affairs, on his right ; 
next to him, Admiral Rodgers. Not much attention, however, was 
paid to the elegant repast. The conversation was immediately re- 
sumed, and continued an hour : 

Prince Kung : " How many are your venerable years % " 

Me. Seward : " Sixty-nine. May I ask your Highness' s age % " 

Prince Kitng : " Thirty-five. Are you now in the exercise of 
public functions % or have you laid down the cares of office, while 
you continue to wear its honors % " 

Mr. Seward : " I was in active public life thirty years. I have 
now given up official duties, and am studying in the way of foreign 
travel — " 

The prince did not wait for the end of Mr. Seward's remark,, 
but, misapprehending his gesticulations, said : 

" I know, without an interpreter, what you are speaking about. 
It is your painful experience in your conflict with the Southern re- 
bellion." 

At Mr. Seward's request, the interpreter told the prince that his 
guess was wide of the mark, and then gave Mr. Seward's answer. 

"Nevertheless," said the prince, "I desire to hear from you 
about the rebellion, and especially about your escape from assassi- 
nation, and about the honorable wounds you have received, the 
marks of which you still wear." 

Mr. Seward, after a few words to satisfy the prince's curiosity 
on that subject, brought the question back to Chinese politics : 

Mr. Seward : " Your Highness, is it the intention of your 
Government to establish permanent missions in foreign capitals % " 

Prince Kung : " By all means. "We expect to have perma- 
nent embassies, and we expect to derive great benefit from them." 

Mr. Seward : " The Japanese Government gave me a letter, 
which they addressed to the minister whom they have recently sent 
to China.* I would like to deliver it." 



202 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Prince Kung : " He lias not yet come." 

Mk. Seward : " Is the Anamite Empire still tributary to China % " 

Prince Kung : " It still continues to send tribute." 

Mr. Seward : " And does Siam, also \ " 

Prestce Kung : " The Siamese Government sends us tribute 
once in five years." 

Mr. Seward: "What is the diplomatic rank of envoys who 
come to you from Corea % " 

Prestce Kung : " That question is not easily answered. The 
Coreans have grades of rank, and honors, altogether different from 
our own." 

Mr. Seward : " Are the tributes which you receive from those 
countries merely ceremonial, or do they enter into the revenues of 
the empire ? " 

Prince Kung : " "We act on the maxim that the envoys of de- 
pendent states shall come to us lean, and go out from us fat. They 
always receive greater presents than they bring." 

Mr. Seward : " The King of Siam once sent us a present in 
regard to which we could not act on that maxim. It was a white 
elephant." 

The prince took out his watch to compare his time with that of 
the legation, and explained that there is no standard chronometer 
in Peking. 

Admiral Eodgers inquired whether the instruments at the 
observatory are no longer serviceable. 

Prestce Kung : " Observations are still made there, but the 
instruments are somewhat neglected, and they have become obso- 
lete." 

Mr. Seward : " It seems so desirable that the sciences of the 
West should be introduced into China that I regret to learn of the 
difficulties which the university projected by Wan-Siang encoun- 
ters. I trust that that institution will revive under its new presi- 
dent, Dr. Martin." 

Prestce Kung : " It was with that hope that we appointed him, 
and we have now the utmost confidence in its success. It is bound 
to succeed." 



INSCRIPTIONS IE" THE ALBUMS. 203 

Dr. Martin, in Mr. Seward's .name, asked the prince and his 
associates to write their names in the ladies' albums. 

The prince took up the book, and, seeming to assume that it 
was Mr. Seward's own, wrote these words : 

" Having already attained so much of wealth and honor, may you also 
attain to great longevity ! " 

He signed this in the Mantchoo character — " Kitng-Chien- 
Wang." 

The aged Minister Chin-Lun, president of the Board of Con- 
trol for the Colonies, wrote : 

\ " May mankind enjoy universal peace ! " 

He signed this both in the Chinese and Mantchoo characters. 

Tung-Tajen, president of the Board of Revenue, before re- 
ferred to in these notes as a poet, wrote, in ancient ornamental 
characters : 

" May mild winds and quiet waves, 
Tranquil seas and pleasant rivers, 
Speed you on your voyage." 

Shen-Tajen, member of the Grand Council of State, next took 
up the pencil, and wrote : 

" May the clouds give you lucky omens, 
The stars assure you happiness and long life, 
The opening flowers presage wealth and honors, 
And the bamboo tube [the mail-bag] only 
And always bring you tidings of peace ! " 

Repeating and rehearsing these several kindly sentiments, they 
rose, took the hands of Mr. Seward and the admiral into their own, 
bade them farewell, and retired. 

November 9,1st. — General Ylangally again entertained us with a 
breakfast at his pleasant legation. 



204 JAPAN, CniNA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

This morning fonr mandarin chairs and six carts, with an un- 
nsual retinne of coolies, appeared at the legation. A messenger 
delivered to Mr. Seward the cards of the several Ministers of State, 
including one of Wan-Siang, together with a present, of which they 
left the following inventory : 

One pair of vases. 

One pair of enamelled eagles. 

One pair of donble-enamelled vases. 

One pair of carved scarlet lacquer boxes. 

One pair of enamelled fish-jars. 

Eight pieces of silk, of various colors. 

Mr. Seward inquired of Mr. Low what would be a proper form 
of acknowledgment. He replied : " You cannot decline the present. 
You can only send your card in return, and pay a Mexican dollar 
to each coolie. Less than this you would be unwilling to do. It 
would be thought disrespectful to do more." 

The American and British missionaries, residing at Peking, 
passed the afternoon with Mr. Seward. They leave on the minds 
of our whole party an impression that they are earnest, true, and 
good men and women. The labor which they are performing in 
this benighted land fully justifies the Christian charity which has 
sent them hither. 

Ever since we came here, Mr. Seward and Admiral Rodgers 
have been diligently laboring to ascertain the feasibility of a return 
of our party by way of the Imperial Canal. The Government has 
caused a report to be made to them on that subject. This paper 
describes many breaches of the canal, but represents them as under- 
going repair. iThe Government would provide for our security in 
the journey, but no shorter period than three weeks would suffice 
to make it in boats, while there would be many and long land port- 
ages. It is almost certain that, within that time, it will be rendered 
impassable by ice. The canal-voyage is therefore given up, though 
not without much reluctance. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE RETURN TO SHANGHAI. 

Once more on the Pei-ho. — The Ladies at Tien-Tsin. — The Shan Tung. — Pigeon English. 
— Tempestuous Weather. — Visit to the Flag-ship Colorado. — Departure of Mr. and 
Mrs. Randall. — On board the Plymouth Rock. 

Twig-Chow, November 22d. — How could we describe in writing 
the parting at the legation, which allowed of no utterance ! 

Time, it seems, is not money in junk-navigation. We find at 
Tung-Chow that our flotilla of little vessels, without a word of 
engagement or promise on our part, had waited nineteen days. It 
has been speedily manned and victualled. Its sails are already 
spread, our flags are unfurled, and we are once more afloat on the 
Pei-ho. The weather is very cold, but the downward voyage to 
Tien-Tsin requires only forty hours. 

Tien-Tsin, November 23d. — Could anybody ask a safer convoy 
on a river-voyage than a rear admiral % Could anybody, needing 
protection on such a voyage, do a wiser thing than trust such a 
convoy ? 

" All's well that ends well ; " but, could there be a better joke 
than that which has occurred to us, under the practice of these prin- 
ciples ? Boat ISTo. 2, bearing the two ladies, accidentally separating 
from the fleet during the night, came up to the draw-bridge at 
Tien-Tsin this morning, not only two hours before No. 4 and the 
other boats, but even three hours before the flag-ship of our gallant 



206 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

convoy. There is not only a time for every thing in this world, 
but there is also a place for it ; but, for those timid adventurers, 
those two hours were not the time ; and Tien-Tsin, with its murky 
atmosphere, stolid crowds, and horrible associations of massacre, 
was certainly not the place. Fortunately, the officers of the Ashue- 
lot found them, opened the way through the draw-bridge, took them 
on board their ship, and seated them, shivering as they were, before 
a fire in their comfortable cabin. 

The deck is completely enclosed with bunting — the flags of all 
nations — and is prepared for a ball in honor of our arrival. The 
same considerations, which counselled us to self-denial on our up- 
ward way, determined us to forego the pleasing compliment. 

Thanks to Mr. Beebe, of the house of Russell & Company, for 
the welcome and comfortable quarters, which we so much needed, 
after the cold river-voyage. Thanks for his pleasant dinner, and 
thanks to Mr. Seward and good Admiral Rodgers for lowering their 
voices after the ladies had left the table, and to the whole party for 
treading so lightly as they retired for the night. Thanks, more 
fervent than all others, to the lucky star which has brought our 
nice, little, rolling Shan Tung, and her spirited Yankee Captain 
Hawes, back from Shanghai, just in time to meet us here and con- 
vey us to that destination. Our last voyage on the Yellow Sea, and 
her last voyage for the season. 

Taku, November 24:th. — On board the Shan Tung, waiting to 
cross the bar. Would anybody care to have an explanation of 
what is called " pigeon-English % " To the visitor, on his arrival 
here, it seems an unnecessary and puerile affectation. But this is a 
mistake. ]N ative agents, servants, and factors, must be employed. 
They do not understand any foreign language, and foreign residents 
cannot learn Chinese. A dialect is needed for mutual communica- 
tion, but it may be limited to the wants of commerce and service. 

As " charity shall cover a multitude of sins," so in this dialect, 
one English word is made to cover a variety of things. " Pigeon," 
to the Chinese ear, means, not the dove, but " business." " Pigeon- 
English," therefore, means " business-English." A few generic 



ON THE YELLOW SEA. 20T 

names, without number, gender, or case, and a very few active and 
auxiliary verbs, Avithout variation of mood or tense, constitute the 
whole vocabulary. " "Will this horse kick ? " In pigeon-English, 
" Horse make kick 1 " " Ask the consul to come here." In pigeon- 
English it is, " Catchee consul, bring come this side." Report, in 
pigeon-English, " No can catchee consul." " Bring the breakfast, 
quickly," — " Catchee chow-chow, chop-chop." 

A similar invention, though not so well perfected, is adapted to 
facilitate intercourse between foreigners and natives in all newly- 
discovered regions. The Indian tribes, on the North-American 
Pacific coast, have a common jargon made up of only two hundred 
words, a mixture of English, French, Spanish, Indian;, etc. The 
lingua franca of the Mediterranean, a jumble of French, Arabic, 
Turkish, and Italian, is another such dialect. " Pigeon-English " is 
now regularly taught in Chinese schools. Since it is capable of in- 
definite expansion, who shall say that, in the progress of time, a 
complete language may not be built upon that narrow foundation ? 

Yellow Sea, off Shan Tung Promontory, November 2Sth. — The 
Gulf Pe-chee-lee is a vixen, and the Shan Tung, in a gale, is a nui- 
sance. Although the morning was soft and genial when we left 
Taku, the sky darkened at ten, and in two hours we were rolling 
and pitching under a severe nor'easter. Unable to land at Che- 
Foo, we anchored for the night at Hope Sound. Resuming our 
voyage, we arrived, at six the next morning, in the harbor of Che- 
Foo. But a high sea would not allow us . to disembark. The 
weather has been intensely cold as well as tempestuous for two 
days and nights, and there has been no rest or comfort. At two 
o'clock yesterday afternoon, finding a smooth nook on the lee 
shore, we came to anchor again, to afford, not passengers, but the 
exhausted seamen, a night of rest. The storm has abated, and we 
are now making rapid headway. 

Shanghai, November 30th. — Why take pains to say what every- 
body may imagine — that we have come back to Shanghai weary, 
or that Mr. and Mrs. Warden seem even kinder than before, or that 
17 



208 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

William Freeman has laid in a stock of "pigeon-English" which 
he thinks will enable us to dismiss our Chinese servants, or that 
Admiral Kodgers has determined that the Colorado shall no longer 
be denied the pleasure of entertaining us, or that Mr. Seward has 
pacified impatient friends and countrymen by contradicting rumors 
which came before us — that the Chinese Government has organized 
an army for immediate war, and that Prince Kung refused to re- 
ceive or meet Mr. Seward in any way ? 

December 6th. — Yesterday, Mr. Seward, attended by many 
friends, visited the admiral's flag-ship. Arriving in the harbor 
of "Woo-Sung, we proposed to go directly from our little yacht 
on board the Colorado. No such hasty proceeding as this, how- 
ever, could be allowed. The whole ship made gorgeous display 
of national colors. The staff-officers, in brilliant uniforms, were 
afloat in her steam-launch, and other boats awaiting us. Seamen 
and marines were ranged on the deck. Six hundred officers and 
men, in regulation attire, were drawn up in line. Our now 
familiar acquaintances, the band, with their brass instruments 
blazing in the burning sun, stood on the quarter-deck ; and in 
front of them all was the admiral, tall, erect, and commanding. 
He waved us a cordial and graceful welcome. The staff came 
alongside, and informed us of the admiral's request that Mr. Sew- 
ard would remain on the yacht until the party should have been 
conveyed by the launches to the Colorado. 

And so it was done. When the party had been assigned proper 
places, Mr. Seward, coming over the bulwarks, was received by the 
admiral ; the marines presented arms, the seamen saluted, the guns 
poured forth a salvo, and the band played " Hail to the Chief! " 

The officers were then severally presented to Mr. Seward. Then 
followed an inspection of the ship, which displayed the usual good 
order of an American man-of-war. A feast was spread in the 
cabins, to which we all sat down. The band continued playing 
until the last guest retired from the table. 

In taste for articles of virtu, the admiral rivals his professional 
confrere, the Duke of Edinburgh. Here we note, by way of 



THE PLYMOUTH ROCK. 209 

parenthesis, in China, which is the country of porcelain, that his 
Wedgwood ware is the finest in the world. 

A voyage under the soft moonlight brought us to the compound 
at two o'clock. 

Mr. and Mrs. Randall, greatly to our regret, being recalled 
home, we part with them here. 1 

Shanghai, December 1th. — We are preparing for an excursion 
on the Yang-tse-ldang. The admiral and officers took final leave of 
us to-day. After a pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Fraser, we 
repaired, at eleven o'clock, on board the steamer Plymouth Hock. 

On board the Plymouth Rock, December Sth. — After all, there 
is something in a name. Plymouth Pock, a name identified with 
the civilization of America, now employed to signalize an American 
regeneration of China ! 

Laboulaye has written an ingenious book describing Paris in 
America. Why shall we not, in ours, illustrate the United States 
in China ? The Plymouth Rock was built in our own country, and 
is owned, managed, and sailed, by our countrymen. Such a prom- 
enade-deck can be found on the great rivers and lakes at home ; 
but such a cabin, such a table, such baths, and such beds, can be 
found nowhere. We knew, when we looked about this morning, 
that no Chinese steward, nor maid-servant, if there be any such, 
nor any American or European steward or stewardess, had ar- 
ranged these homelike comforts. Though we saw no woman, we 
knew, not only that a woman had been here, but that she lives here. 
The captain's wife, Mrs. Simmons, is absent for only a day or two. 

The Hudson and the Mississippi are the only rivers in the world 
where steamers carry as heavy freights as on the Yang-tse-kiang. 
If the monopoly of this navigation by our countrymen serves to ex- 
tend our national influence in China, it at the same time illustrates 
the absurdity of the fear that the Chinese interest will become an 
intrusive or dangerous element in the United States. 

1 Auburn, July 26, 18*72. — We record with deep sorrow the death of Mr. Randall. 
He closed a life of eminent public service and private virtue, at his residence in Elmira, 
yesterday, after his return to that place from a visit to Mr. Seward, here. 



CHAPTER XII. 

UP THE YANG-TSE-KIANG. 

The Mississippi of China. — Ching-Kiang. — Large Freights. — Nanking. — The Porcelain 
Tower. — A Specimen Brick. — Abundance of Game. — Scenery on the River. — Ku- 
Kiang. — Conversation with Mr. Drew. — Policy of the United States. — Han-Kow. — 
Ascent of the Promontory. — Magnificent View. — Cheerful Aspect of Han-Kow. — 
Excursion to Woo-Chang. — A Disagreeable Adventure. 

December 9th. — The Yang-tse-kiang has its sources in the moun- 
tains of Thibet, side by side with those of rivers which flow through 
Siam, Burmah, and Hindostan, into the Bay of Bengal. In reach- 
ing the Pacific, it traverses the central region of China, a distance 
of nineteen hundred miles, which the sinuosities of its course 
lengthen to three thousand miles. Though this navigation may 
not be longer than that of the Mississippi River, extended by the 
Missouri River, the Yang-tse-ldang greatly surpasses the great 
American river in depth, breadth, and volume. Often, in its 
course, it spreads into broad bays or lakes, and, losing its own 
name, ta'hes on local ones, just as the mighty St. Lawrence does. 

In a distance of eighty miles from the sea, the river gradually 
shrinks from a breadth of some thirty miles to that of one mile — 
the banks level, densely inhabited, and perfectly cultivated. 

At midnight we fastened at the wharf of Ching-Kiang, the 
southern terminus of the Imperial Canal. This populous and 
important town was nearly destroyed during the Ta-ping rebel- 
lion. The mercury had gone down to twenty-eight degrees. A 
heavy dew was falling. It was no time to go ashore. Our captain 



THE CITY OF NANKING. 



211 



left on the wharf three thousand boxes and bales of merchandise, 
consisting of sugars from Southern China, and British manufac- 
tured goods and opium from India — a large freight, considering 
that the steamer is one of a daily line, and that the river is at 
every point crowded with junks. It looks quite like home to see 
the numerous and immense timber-rafts floating down from native 
forests in Thibet. 

What product does China need to make herself self-sustaining % 
The banks above Ching-Kiang rise to a height of one thousand 
feet. Nanking, on the south side of the river, is in an amphitheatre 
formed by those hills. This city has historical interest as the capital 




BRIDGE AT NANKING, AND PORCELAIN TOWER BEFORE ITS DESTRUCTION. 



of the empire before the conquest of Kublai-Khan ; afterward it 
was occasionally the residence of the Ming emperors. Nanking 
became famous, still later, as a commercial centre, and remained so 



212 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

until the period of steam-navigation. Last of all, it became mem- 
orable as the vantage-ground from which the Ta-ping insurgents 
carried the civil war to the walls of Peking. The pagoda called 
the Porcelain Tower, which, with its nine successive roofs of see'xii- 
ing emerald, and the golden apple on its summit, at that time 
looked upon Nanking, was justly admired, not only as a chief em- 
bellishment of the great city, but as one of the wonders of the 
world. But all this glory has passed away. The Ta-ping rebel- 
lion, which ended only in 1864, proved destructive to Nanking. 

It seems almost enough to excuse the dread which all nations 
feel for civil war, when we contemplate the devastation which it 
invariably produces. Nanking, within its fifteen miles of dilapi- 
dated wall, is little else than a desolation. The Porcelain Tower is 
only recognized by its debris. The port is not open to foreign 
commerce, but the Government permits steamers to receive and 
land passengers. A friend who came on board presented us with 
a large brick which he has taken from the ruined pagoda. Mr. 
Seward, thanking him for it, said : 

" One of the minor Greek poets ridicules as a simpleton a man 
who, having a house to sell, went about showing one of its bricks 
as a sample ; but, insomuch as the Porcelain Tower is gone, I am 
thankful for a relic of it." 

Game is one of the marvels of the country. On the river it is 
over your head and under your feet — everywhere. You may buy 
a dozen pheasants, ducks, or snipe, for less than the price of a pair 
of fowls in Washington Market. You pay less for wild-boar, veni- 
son, or hare, than for veal or mutton at home. Do these wild ani- 
mals affect the society of semi-barbarian man, or is the abundance 
here due to the great productiveness of the soil % 

December 10th. — Two hundred and fifty miles above Nanking, 
the river flows swiftly through a narrow gorge between two moun- 
tains, one called the Eastern, the other the Western Pillar. Above 
this strait the river winds, and is flanked on the right bank by 
bluffs like those of the Mississippi and Missouri ; a hundred miles 
higher, another gorge ; near the left bank, a conical islet, four hun- 



1 



j SilI 







. 




LITTLE ORPHAN ISLAND. 



21; 



dred feet- high, rocky at the base, but smiling with vegetation at 
the top, the sides indented with winding terraces bordered with 
Buddhist cloisters, on the summit a picturesque pagoda. The rock 
is named, in the chart, "Little Orphan." Opposite it is the pretty 
little town of Tung-Lu, with a picturesque wall winding over the 
undulating mountain-crest. Here the river receives the water of 




LITTLE ORPHAN ISLAND. 



the Po-yang, a lake with a circuit of one hundred and eighty miles, 
which, in some seasons, is enlarged to an area of two hundred and 
fifty miles by the overflow of the river. 

Four hundred miles from the sea, the river has narrowed to half 
a mile. The banks on either side are crowded with villages ; the 
depth, at this season of low water, twenty-five feet ; swollen by the 



214 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

winter floods, it is sixty. Farther upward, villages are less con- 
spicuous ; but temples and pagodas, at picturesque points, break 
the monotony. One of these pagodas is a hundred feet high ; all 
are dedicated to the gods of the Winds and the Waves. 

At sunset we came to Ku-Kiang, a port open to commerce, on 
the south side of the river. The foreign settlement, though small, 
is well arranged and conducted ; the Chinese city is contracted 
and meanly built, but busy. Mr. Rose, of the house of Russell 
& Co., and Mr. Drew, deputy Chinese revenue commissioner, 
rec :ived us. 

Each of the treaty powers nominates to the Chinese Govern- 
ment a certain number of persons to serve as such deputies, under 
the superintendence of the inspector-general, Mr. Hart. These 
deputies are expected to learn the Chinese language, laws, and cus- 
toms. Mr. Drew is an American. While walking in the Bund, 
he lamented to Mr. Seward that British prestige in China prevails 
over that of the United States : 

Me. Sewaed : "To what do you attribute this advantage ? " 

Me. Deew: " To the superior policy pursued by Great Britain. 
That nation, as well as France, maintains a habit of demonstration 
and menace ; the United States a policy of forbearance and con- 
ciliation." 

Mk. Sewaed : " These sentiments of yours harmonize with 
those of most of our countrymen whom I have met in China, 
How many foreigners of all nations have you in Ku-Kiang ? " 

Me. Deew : " Twenty-five." 

Me. Sewaed : " How many of these are Americans ? " 

Me. Deew : " Two or three." 

Me. Sewaed : " The others, I suppose, are British and French, 
with perhaps a German or two % " 

Me. Deew : " Yes." 

Me. Sewaed : "I understand that, while the foreign popula- 
tion at Shanghai is two thousand five hundred, only fifty or sixty 
of these are Americans ? " 

Me. Deew : " Yes." 

Me. Sewaed : " Have you observed that Great Britain, France, 



POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 215 

and Russia, maintain in China diplomatic, consular, military, and 
naval agents, in numbers as far exceeding those of the United 
States as their national population resident here exceeds that of 
citizens from the United States ? In short, most of the Americans 
residing in China are missionaries, are they not \ " 

Me. Drew : " Yes." 

Mr. Seward : " Is it your opinion that there would have been 
in China, to-day, any more American citizens than there are now, 
if the United States had heretofore either waged war against China 
or menaced her in any way ? " 

Mr. Drew: "No." 

Mr. Seward : " You have been here many years. Do you 
know of any outrage, or injury, or wrong, that the United States 
have ever complained of, that the Chinese Government has left un- 
redressed % " 

Mr. Drew : " I know of none." 

Mr. Seward : " Has Great Britain or France secured to her- 
self in China any political or commercial benefit or advantage 
which the Chinese Government has not equally extended, by 
treaty, to the United States % " 

Mr. Drew : " No." 

Mr. Seward : " The complaints of the superiority of British 
and French prestige over that of the United States in China are 
of recent growth. They arose chiefly in the period of our late 
civil war. You know little of the herculean difficulties of the 
Government in that conflict. Do you think that the United States 
Government, under the administration of Abraham Lincoln or of 
Andrew Johnson, could have wisely made war, or demonstration 
of war, against China % " 

Mr. Drew : " No." 

Mr. Seward: "Do you think that the United States ought to 
provoke China by any act of injustice or wrong? Do you think 
that it would be wise for the United States, without provocation, to 
resort to any policy of menace or intimidation ? Do you think 
that the American people would support an administration in such 
a policy of provocation or menace, now while they are submitting 



216 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

to such high taxation to discharge the national debt incurred in a 
civil war ? " 

Me. Deew : " I think they would not." 

Me. Sewaed : " One question more. If the United States, dur- 
ing the last twenty years, had pursued a policy of intimidation 
toward China, do you think that they w T ould have been able, at the 
same time, to draw from this empire an emigration of seventy-five 
thousand laborers to build the Pacific Railroad, and open the mines 
in the Rocky Mountains ? " 

Me. Deew : " I have not thought of that before." 

Me. Sewaed : " "Well, Mr. Drew, I think we are obliged to con- 
clude from all these premises that a policy of justice, moderation, 
and friendship, is the only one that we have had a choice to pursue, 
and that it has been as wise as it has been unavoidable." 

It is due to Mr. Drew to say that he had received his appoint- 
ment to his present place from Mr. Seward as Secretary of State, 
and that he presented the subject to that gentleman chiefly for the 
purpose of ascertaining how far he had found cause to sympathize, 
during his sojourn here, with the complaints of our countrymen. 

Mr. Seward closed the conversation by saying : " The United 
States are a republic, an aggregation of thirty-seven republics. Of 
the thirty-nine millions, which constitute the American people, less 
than ten thousand dwell in foreign countries, and a smaller propor- 
tion in China than in many other countries. The United States 
cannot be an aggressive nation — least of all can they be aggressive 
against China." 

We reached the steamer and the end of the discussion at the 
same moment. This was our visit at Ku-Kiang. 

Han-Koto, Sunday, December 11th. — xit nine o'clock in the 
morning of this blessed Sunday, our steamer forces her way to the 
wharf through a fleet of a thousand Chinese vessels. These vessels 
are coastwise junks, river-trading junks, market-junks, fishing-junks, 
passage-junks, stationary storehouse-junks, dwelling-junks, and tav- 
ern-junks. So, after a travel of four months and two days, we 
have reached the centre of China. The Han, a large tributary, is 



CITY OF HAN-KOW. 21 7 

to the Yang-tse what the Missouri is to the Mississippi. The con- 
fluence of the two rivers makes the site for three large cities. Two 
of these, Han-Kow and Han-Yan, are on the opposite banks of the 
Han. Wu-Chang is on the Yang-tse, opposite the confluence of the 
two rivers. Practically, the three constitute one city. The foreign 
settlement, however, is established at Han-Kow. 

Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, found, in Central China, 
a city on the Yang-tse, which he reported by the name of Kiu-sai. 
He estimated its circuit at a hundred Chinese miles. This is the 
city in which we now are. The good Abbe Hue, who sojourned 
here before the dark days of European invasion and domestic rebel- 
lion, estimated the population of the city at eight millions. While 
the European residents say that the abbe exaggerates, they insist 
that the present population exceeds one million. The site of Han- 
Kow may be compared to that of St. Louis. Through the attenu- 
ated tributaries of the Yang-tse, Han-Kow gathers up agricultural, 
mineral, forest, and manufactured products, from the western re- 
gions of the empire, and distributes them by domestic and foreign 
exchange through the ports of Tien-Tsin, Shanghai, and Canton. 
When one has reached this commanding point, it is easily con- 
ceived why it is that Shanghai, at the mouth, is so rapidly en- 
grossing the commerce of the empire. 

The port of Han-Kow was opened in 1861. The Concession is 
beautifully laid out, and built up in a rich and costly style. It is 
spacious enough for ten -thousand inhabitants, while the present 
number of foreigners is only fifty. There are six foreign houses, 
one of which is American. The high expectations of increase have 
been disappointed, not because the trade was misestimated, nor yet 
because it has failed, but, strange to say, only for the reason that 
the native merchants have learned the respective wants of foreign 
markets, and the ways of supplying them. They are now, them- 
selves, enjoying the advantages which the European merchants have 
aimed to secure. 

Noon. — We live on shipboard, but we, nevertheless, are enjoy- 
ing the hospitalities of Mr. Eitz, at the house of Eussell & Company. 



218 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN" CHINA. 

We attended service, this morning, at the Chapel of St. John the 
Evangelist. It was built for the Church of England, but, having lost 
its Government stipend, the congregation is unable to support a 
pastor. Prayers were read by a Wesleyan missionary, an amateur 
choir singing the beautiful chants and hymns in an admirable 
manner. 

December 12th. — In our exploration, yesterday afternoon, we 
found that, although " some things can be done as well as others," 
there is, nevertheless, a "right way and wrong way" of doing 
them. 

Mr. Fitz inquired whether we would have chairs sent forward 
for our ascent of the promontory, at the junction of the two rivers. 
The arguments against it were, that most persons prefer walking to 
the hazard of being carried up the steep hill by coolies. Mr. Sew- 
ard advised that chairs should be sent, to be used as we should find 
need. The younger people promptly decided for themselves to dis- 
pense with the luxury. We went up the river to the base of the 
promontory in a row-boat (sam-pan). Thence we made our way, 
through a dirty and crowded suburb, up a flight of five hundred 
stone steps. At this elevation, we found neither platform, bench, 
nor stone, to rest on, but only another flight of two thousand stone 
steps before us, with an inclination of forty-five degrees. Mr. Sew- 
ard took the chair which he had so thoughtfully provided for him- 
self, and, though his ascent seemed frightful to us, he was borne 
quickly and safely to the top by two coolies, who neither stumbled 
nor stopped to rest. The other members of the party followed 
slowly, and reached the summit completely exhausted. Here, we 
availed ourselves of the restoratives of tea and rest, in a dingy 
Buddhist temple. We might confess now that the view which 
presented itself amply rewarded the painful efforts by which it was 
obtained, if we could be quite sure that we should recover, in many 
months, the muscular strength expended. On our right hand, the 
Yang-tse, a mile wide, flowed with rapid current ; on our left was 
the Han, scarcely eighty feet broad, though its springs are a thou- 
sand miles distant. The city of Han -Kow covers the banks of both 



ASPECT OF HAN-KOW. 219 

rivers at their junction ; behind it spreads a vast, low, green marsh, 
every year inundated, and often forcing the inhabitants to take 
refuge in boats. At the base of the promontory on which we stand, 
looking down the river, is the fresh-looking little city of Han-Yan, 
enclosed in a neat though not formidable stone- wall ; and, on the 
opposite bank of the Yang-tse, crowded with pagodas, palaces, tem- 
ples, universities, dwellings, barracks, and camps, is Y^u-chang, 
capital of the province of Hu-peh. A thin, blue haze limits the 
prospect to an horizon in which a small and lovely lake flows at the 
base of gently-undulating hills. 

In contrast with other Chinese cities, Han-Kow, including the 
three towns, wears a cheerful aspect. The streets are regular, and 
the dwellings, of stone or adobe, are whitened with paint or lime. 
From our commanding position we made an effort to secure a care- 
ful estimate of the population. Our conclusion was, that the num- 
ber of the inhabitants on land within the three cities is one million. 
But this estimate left us all afloat as to the mass of the dwellers on 
the water. It would be as easy to look from the high-road on the 
Owasco Hills into the beech and maple forests, that border it on 
either side, and count the trees, as it would be here to number the 
vessels of all sizes which throw a dark shade across the narrow 
channel of the Han, and over the left bank of the Yang-tse. "We 
venture to set down the population afloat at a hundred thousand. 
Who will correct our estimate ? 

We were to dine with Mr. Fitz at seven o'clock, but his house 
in the Bund is sixty feet above the river. The young people who 
had so bravely stormed the promontory were only able on their 
return to climb from the sam-pan to the steamer. Mr. Seward 
carried with him their reluctant, apologies. 

December 12th, evening. — An excursion to Wu-chang. Sitting 
in our sam-pan, we fortunately became spectators of a theatrical 
entertainment on the bank of the river in Han-Kow. We estimated 
the audience at four thousand, without seats. Standing in rows, 
one rising above another on the steep declivity, they presented 
unbroken lines of blue nankeen, yellow faces, and shaven heads. 



220 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



The stage was without change of scene, or scenery of any kind. 
There was no orchestra, but frequent rattling of gongs and drums 
on the stage. The performers were brilliantly dressed in yellow 
and red. So far as we could see, there was no breaking up of the 
performance for time or place. The whole ran on without pause. 
The actors gesticulated much and grotesquely, but they drew out 




CHINESE THEATRICALS. 



from the patient and delighted audience not one sign of applause. 
We distinguished frequent battles and dances in the play, but the 
dialogue was lost in the distance. After looking on for half an 
hour, we continued our excursion. When we returned three hours 
afterward, we found the performance still going on, with no per- 
ceptible change in either the actors or the audience. 



CHINESE BEGGARS. 221 

Landing at Wu-chang, we ascended a promontory which divides 
the city into two equal parts. A bright and variegated pagoda, 
called the " Little Stork," graces the hill above the landing-place. 
Its story, though modern, is characteristic: a little golden god took 
it into his head one night to ride a snow-white stork into the cham- 
ber of the dreaming Taou-tai of the province, and demanded of 
him the erection of a pagoda in this place. The Taou-tai said, " I 
hear and obey," and, when he wakened, "he went and did it." 
We climbed the winding staircase of this pagoda. Cakes, tea, and 
confectionery are served, fortunes told, and " curios" sold in every 
story. In the upper one is a statue of a little god, about five feet 
high, with long, slender eyes, smooth black queue, black, waxed 
mustache, and tunic of blue and gold. He smiles complacently as 
he sits on the back of a stork, carved in wood and painted white. 
To speak the truth, he is a merry little god — the only one of that 
aspect we have met. Leaving the pagoda, we passed through the 
court of a Confucian temple, thickly crowded with sellers of fruit 
and provisions, trinket-dealers, vagabonds and idlers, and lame, 
blind, maimed and loathsome beggars. We looked into the temple, 
and found its walls covered with texts of the classic books. As we 
came out, the crowd around us had formidably increased. There 
is no coin in China but an iron one, of which a thousand pieces go 
to the dollar. Of course, we had none of these. The beggars, 
unaccustomed to being refused the pitiful alms they expected, 
became importunate and impertinent. One of our servants, who 
had a few English sixpences, emptied his pockets, without other 
effect than increasing the number of mendicants and their vehe- 
mence. 

Our view from the summit behind the temple renewed the 
impressions which we had received on the opposite promontory, 
the previous day. Resuming our chairs, we were on our return to 
the landing-place on the river, when a painful adventure occurred, 
the first of that kind in our travels. Foreigners seldom cross the 
river to Wu-chang. Our visit was a novelty, there, and excited 
much curiosity. The town contains a university in which ten 
thousand students are gathered from the provinces, and it also has 



222 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

a military school with a large garrison. These provincial schools 
are distinguished for their bigotry and prejudice against foreigners. 
Our friends, however, had not apprised us of these facts, nor had 
they taken into consideration that our party contained two ladies, 
who would be objects of special curiosity here, as they were on our 
way to the Great Wall. A section of the crowd, which had been 
following us, stopped on the brink ot the hill, from which they 
could look down on the winding path we were descending. One 
of the ladies had left her chair, and was walking in advance. Mr. 
Seward was in an elegant green chair with glass windows ; the 
other lady in a covered bamboo-chair behind. A stone six inches 
thick struck the back window of Mr. Seward's chair and shivered it 
to pieces. A second, as large, entered the same window, and fell 
within the chair. A third stone struck the top of the last chair, 
and crushed the frail top. The coolie bearers of the two chairs 
stopped in a fright, and raised an outcry, directed toward persons 
on the top of the cliff. Well they might, for, if either of those' 
missiles had fallen on one of their naked heads, it would have 
proved fatal. Happily the silken curtains of Mr. Seward's chair 
saved him from injury. He instantly alighted and turned to find 
the assailant. The enemy had, however, fled in consternation from 
the hill, and it remained to us only to exchange congratulations 
upon our escape from a common danger. Though the people sur- 
rounded us in masses, which rendered our passage through the 
narrow streets tedious and difficult, they made no expression or 
sign of unkinclness or disrespect. Mr. Seward regards the assault 
not as one of design or deliberation, but as the unpremeditated and 
wanton act of rude and mischievous idlers. Nevertheless, the 
gentlemen at Han-Kow have addressed the Taou-tai on the subject. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

RETURN TO SHANGHAI. 

Departure from Han-Kow. — Chinese Military Art. — A Marvellous Echo. — The Imperial 
Canal.— Approach to Chin-Kiang. — The United States Steamer Alaska. — Running 
down a Junk. — An Apology from the Viceroy. — The Comprador. — Chinese Ladies. 
— Embark on an English Steamer. 

Steamer Plymouth Hock, Yang-tse-kia?ig, December 13th. — We 
left the wharf at Han-Kow at daylight this morning, and in return- 
ing to Shanghai we are expecting to enjoy, by daylight, the scenes 
lost to ns by night in ascending the river. The banks below Han- 
Kow are low and flat, with a city at almost every bend, but the 
mountains crowd closely on the plain. 

December 14dh? — Kight and rain came down upon us as we 
approached Ku-Kiang, but with only this pleasant consequence, 
that we gathered at the dinner-table in our cabin the merry party 
which we were to have met on the Bund. When they had retired, 
certain tall natives of the country, of course olive-colored, with 
glazed crowns and smoothly-braided queues, brought two garden- 
vases and two baskets, each of the latter containing what our gentle 
friends at home would pronounce " a love " of a tea-set — one ver- 
milion, the other blue. Thanks to Mr. Rose. 

At Zuaking is a gleaming white pagoda, one hundred feet high, 
with a cupola of burnished brass. It has seven verandas, the roof 
of each ornamented with bright, tinkling bells. At its base is a 
military school. 



224 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Certainly military art, the world over, delights in fine colors, 
loud noises, and much demonstration. In the West, however, we 
are abating color and noise, while we study to increase force. In 
China, they reverse this. They do not improve their engines and 
weapons ; they make greater noise with their gongs and a more 
dazzling display of yellow and red in their uniforms and flags than 
ever. Naval junks meet us everywhere on the river. Though 
diminutive in size, and carrying ordnance of the smallest calibre, 
their bunting surpasses that of a Hudson River steamer going to 
celebrate the Schiitzenfest. 

We have just passed a mountain-gorge which has a marvellous 
echo. When we entered the pass, the reverberations were single. 
Passing on, the shrill notes of the steam-whistle came back to us 
prolonged and louder. Farther on, the mountains gave us back 
two distinct sounds for each one they received ; afterward three, 
four, five for one. It was the perfection of ventriloquism. The 
sounds were articulate ; they seemed to come through the earth ; 
sometimes sonorous, at others soft and plaintive, always impres- 
sive and mournful. 

Chin-Kiang, December 15th. — Anchoring off the left bank of . 
the river in very deep water, and taking the ship's boats, we made 
an entrance, not without difficulty, into the Imperial Canal. 

Take its story briefly, to understand better what little we saw : 
Built in the thirteenth century, it is a monument equally of the 
greatness and of the wisdom of Kublai-Khan. Its length is six 
hundred and fifty miles, nearly twice that of the Erie Canal. De- 
signed for irrigation as well as navigation, it varies in width from 
two hundred feet to two thousand feet. It is not, like our canals, 
built by excavation, but with artificial dikes raised on an alluvial 
soil, its banks and bottom paved and cemented. Instead of locks, 
there are inclined planes. Every abutment, flood-gate, and bridge, 
is of solid granite masonry. The Imperial Canal, like the Erie 
Canal, is not an isolated channel, but only the main artery of a 
system of artificial navigation, the aggregate length of whose 
parts is four thousand miles, while they penetrate every one 







mtimm. 



Hflilll'li'llr': '' " IK Jill 



THE IMPERIAL CANAL. 225 

of the eighteen provinces of the empire. The canal is compactly 
■crowded with junks. We conld not make our way into it a 
yard's length, without waiting for a movement of the vessels 
for our accommodation. Our appeals to the boatmen for this 
■courtesy were not unkindly received, though the result was a 
scene of wild and noisy disturbance. We soon became con- 
vinced that, in our small boats,, we were in danger of being 
crushed between junks, even though nothing should occur to pro- 
duce misunderstanding or disturbance. We returned, therefore, 
to the ship's; deck, as cautiously as possible. In that position we 
traced the course of the canal " high," though not " dry," above 
ground four miles. The shipping through that distance was as 
dense as at the mouth. The offices of the managers and toll-col- 
lectors cover the banks, while an armed fleet rides at the mouth of 
the canal, to prevent piracy and smuggling. We learn here that 
obstructions render the canal impassable for the aggregate extent 
of one hundred and fifty miles. Even the navigable portions are 
.so much injured as to float only small vessels. The largest we saw 
are of one hundred and fifty tons burden. 

Three months ago, when a foreign war was apprehended, an 
engineer submitted to the Government a project for restoring the 
navigation, but elicited no reply. There is little doubt that the 
canals of China, the most successful and magnificent system of in- 
land navigation the world has ever seen, are falling into decay and 
ruin. 

The approach to Chin-Kiang is very picturesque. It stands on 
a semicircular bay — the western entrance guarded by Golden Isl- 
and, on which stand a Buddhist temple and a pagoda — the eastern 
entrance by Silver Island, its undulating surface embellished with 
iea-houses and villas. 

December 16th, 4 o'clock. — We are passing from the broad 
estuary into the Woosung. Farewell, Yang-tse, worthy, from thy 
length and breadth, to be called " Son of the Sea," though the 
critics learned in the Chinese language deny thee that significant 
appellation, and mention that Yang-tse means something else. 



226 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

Shanghai, December 16th, night. — Quite to our surprise, we 
passed the Colorado, still at her anchorage. As we approached 
Shanghai, the Plymouth Rock took a berth far out in the stream 
among the forejgn shipping, busy junks and sam-pans darting 
around her in all directions. "While standing on the steamer's deck 
awaiting a launch to convey us to the bank, the United States 
steamship-of-war Alaska came rapidly down the river. As we 
were in the act of exchanging compliments with the officers on her 
deck, she rode over a Chinese junk which was madly attempting to 
cross her bow. An instant afterward the two parts of the junk 
appeared on either side of the iron-clad. With how many lives the 
junk was freighted we could not know, but we saw living men 
clinging to the sundered parts of the wreck, and other living men 
struggling in the water. The Alaska promptly reversed her en- 
gines, threw out life-preservers and lowered her boats. Fortu- 
nately, at that moment, a steam-launch from the Colorado, reen- 
forced by Chinese sam-pans, went to the rescue, but we were 
unable to discover with what success. The painful incident has 
saddened our return to Shanghai. 

December 17th. — We learn from the consul-general that the 
survivors of the wrecked junk hastened to the consulate with com- 
plaints against the Alaska, and that he, as well as Admiral Rodgers^ 
is engaged in examining the circumstances of the collision. The 
captain of the Alaska represents that he was hastening to get over 
the bar before ebb-tide ; that the junk was crossing his bows, and 
had time to clear herself, but that, as her crew advanced on their 
track, they espied the Plymouth Rock coming up, and, taking 
alarm lest they should come under her wheels, they stopped in 
their course and fell under the keel of the Alaska. 

We have arranged to sail for Hong-Kong on the 22d. 

Shanghai, December l§th. — Le-ming-Che, Taou-tai of Han-Kow, 
to H. E. Hobson, assistant in charge Han-Kow customs : 

"I am in receipt of your note informing me of your having 
visited Wu-Chang, with a party among whom was his Excellency 



THE CHINESE COMPRADOR. 227 

William H. Seward, on wliicli occasion you were assailed by a 
disorderly mob of boys, and your sedan-chairs broken. The pro- 
ceeding was most indecorous. I am intensely grieved that his 
Excellency, the American Secretary, should have met with such an 
insult on the occasion of his visit. I respectfully request you to 
convey to his Excellency my profound regret for what has taken 
place. I have duly instructed the Wu-Chang magistrate to issue 
proclamations to prosecute the offenders. 

" Intercalang, tenth moon, twenty -first day." 

Shanghai, December 20th. — The comprador, in China, is a char- 
acter as incomprehensible as important. He is a native trained in 
accounts and trade. Employed by the foreign hongs (mercantile 
houses) as book-keeper and accountant, he adds to these functions 
that of the broker, who buys for the firm, and makes all its sales. 
In these transactions, he receives commissions from both parties. 
What is more singular is, that he maintains this duplicity of rela- 
tions without suspicion of dishonesty. The comprador does not 
confine himself to mere trade, he is indispensable in all domestic 
and social transactions. He negotiates marriages between parties 
who never know nor see each other until the contract is completed. 
Russell & Company's comprador, to-day, paid his annual visit to 
Mr. Warden at the Compound. He brought his wife and her two 
handmaidens, presenting the latter, however, as his wives, numbers 
three and four ; apologizing for number two, who remained at 
home. Also, two daughters-in-law, one child, and six attendants. 
The women, of course, came to pay their respects to Mrs. Warden. 
The comjprador desired to make his homage to Mr. Seward, and the 
women requested an introduction to the ladies of his party. There 
was difficulty, at first, about the women coming into Mr. Seward's 
presence, but it was overcome. The wives and the boy shook 
hands with us quite in the American way, but evidently not with- 
out concern for their finger-nails, some of which were quite as long 
as the fingers that bore them. They were elegantly dressed, wear- 
ing a profusion of jewels, and were very timid. As they spoke no 
English, and we no Chinese, nothing: remained for them but to 



228 JAP AX, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

study our dresses and ornaments, as well as the furniture and arti- 
cles of vertu in the drawing-room. When they had exhausted 
those on the first-floor, they desired to explore the second story. 
The grand stairway is broad and easy, but, as all these women have 
tiny feet, each required a strong arm in making the ascent, but that 
must not be a man's arm. The ladies, therefore, offered theirs, and 
" such a getting up-stairs, you never did see ! " It would have 
been amusing, if it had. not been really dangerous. After a 
thorough and minute inspection of the upper part of the house, 
they descended the staircase with much nervous apprehension. 
They then listened wonderingly to our music on. the piano-forte. 
Calling, then, for their gorgeous sedan-chairs, they retired,- doubt- 
less to describe, to their small-footed and long-fingered friends, the 
mysteries and absurdities of Western fashions. During their entire 
visit, the comprador had directed the movements of .his wives and 
children with all the vigilance and ' conscious superiority of a tur- 
key-cock. As we assisted the women, or rather carried them in 
our arms, up and down the staircase, bright-eyed, gentle, and sweet- 
voiced indeed, but dwarfed, distorted, and enslaved, their de- 
pendence was touching. :¥e: had not before realized the depth of 
the abasement of women in China. 

Steamer Travancore, 'China 8ea y Deceniber 22d. — Many friends 
attended us to the steamer, and kindly signals were made to us from 
balconies, the consulate, and the shipping in the harbor. 

For the first time in our travels, we are on a foreign deck. . The 
Travancore, named from a province in British India, on the coast 
of Malabar, belongs to the " Peninsular and Oriental " line of 
steamers, usually abbreviated the " P. and O." 

The familiar berth of the Colorado, at Wusung, was vacant. 
She had sailed, an hour before, for Nagasaki. We were still ex- 
pressing our regret that we were to see her no more, when we 
passed the bar. Standing southerly, however, we saw the majestic 
flag-ship before us, at rest in the open sea, with all her flags and 
streamers flying, the admiral and officers on the quarter-deck, and 
every yard fully manned. Three hearty cheers greeted us from her 



A SCENE ON THE IMPERIAL CANAL. 



229 



six hundred seamen, her colors dropped, officers and men saluted 
us, and the faithful band gave us for farewell the same old national 
air with which it had greeted us on coining into Chinese waters. 
The Travancore lowered her flags, and every officer and passenger 
joined us in acknowledging the kind and loyal demonstration of the 
Colorado. 




SCENE ON TIIE IMPESIAL CANAL. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

FROM SHANGHAI 10 HONG-KONG. 

Bad Weather. — Cold Weather. — Variety of Seamen. — The Ship's Accommodations. — 
Hong-Kong. — Beautiful Scenery. — Old Acquaintances renewed. — Native and For- 
eign Population. 

On hoard the Travancore, Christmas-Day ', 1870. — Give us no 
more of the China Sea ; give us, instead, the Pacific Ocean, the 
Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea ; give us any water, if it be not the 
Bay of Yeddo, and any Gulf, but the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee. 

A bleak northeaster, with rain, wind, and darkness, drove us. 
to the cabin as soon as we had parted with the Colorado. When, 
during the day, the decks dried, the winds grew higher and the 
seas rougher, and we have remained prisoners below, until the morn- 
ing. This cold weather, on the verge of the tropics, is a surprise ; 
the high winds compel r the native shipping to hug the coast, and 
equally oblige foreign vessels to keep away from it. Thus, it has 
happened that we have seen neither ship nor coast, although a 
narrow sea divides the great island of Formosa on our left from the 
continent. !Now that we are approaching Hong-Kong, we are 
surrounded with native craft. 

"We mark a new phase in this navigation. "We found the sea- 
men, on the Pacific mail-steamer China, chiefly Chinese ; so they 
are in the coastwise trade of the Yellow Sea. This Chinese monop- 
oly is broken here. At the ship's muster this morning, the ranks 
showed many variations of physiognomy, with all shades of dark 



ARRIVAL AT HONG-KONG. 231 

complexion. Of Europeans there are none; besides the light- 
yellow Chinese, there are the darker Malays ; small but active 
Hindoos, almost black, with perfect Caucasian features and curling- 
hair ; and strongly-built, heavy-featured, coal-black negroes from 
South Africa. The languages and religions of the crew are not 
less diverse. There are Bramins, Buddhists, Confucians, and 
Mohammedans. While uniform discipline is enforced, difference 
of faith, as well as of diet and costume, is tolerated. The Chinese 
dress as on shore. The Hindoos wear a gay cotton blouse, on 
week-days, which they exchange on holidays for tightly-fitting cot- 
ton trousers and blouses of the same material, scarlet or crimson 
sashes, and turbans. The Hindoo boatswain adds to this a gilt- 
embroidered, scarlet vest. The Malays wear calico pantaloons, with 
white shirts, and the negroes, here as everywhere else, indulge in 
the gayest of colors. 

The ship's accommodations do not compare favorably with those 
of the Pacific Mail Line, but here disparaging criticism must end. 
Though the table is frugal, the wines and provisions are of the best, 
and the linen is unimpeachable. The service is punctual, and the 
officers and seamen are courteous and watchful. 

Hong-Kong, December 26th. — Hong-Kong is an island, which 
Great Britain has conquered, and commands the entrance of Canton. 
It rises more abruptly from the water than the island of St. Thomas 
in the West Indies. 

We anchored at three o'clock yesterday. There is far less 
shipping here than at Shanghai. The terraces which wind around 
the hill-sides show distinctly in bold outline every dwelling and 
structure of the European town, which, as well as the foreign ships 
in the harbor, was yesterday gayly decorated with flags and Christ- 
mas-greens. We were received by Mr. Murray Forbes, representa- 
tive here of Russell & Company, at Kee-Chnng, the name of their 
princely house. We found fire on the hearth, the first which has 
been kindled this season, and the people here are rejoicing in hav- 
ing escaped at last the intense heat of summer. We make these 
memoranda, sitting in a deep window of this great, old-fashioned 



232 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



dwelling, shadowed by the mountain-summit, while an unclouded 
morning sun brings the town below into broad relief, and beyond 
it the deep, blue bay dotted with diverse shipping. A high, red, 
rocky coast bounds the prospect. Imagine such a picture as we 
have tried to present, seen as we are seeing it through a frame- 
work of palmetto, banyan, camphor, and acacia trees, and you have 
Hong-Kong. 

December 27th. — Resting, Mr. Seward has exchanged visits with 
the Governor of Hong-Kong, and the United States consul, Mr. 
Bailey. We are renewing old acquaintances with countrymen 
and countrywomen. Our departure for Singapore is fixed for the 
3d of January. We need, therefore to improve our few remain- 
ing days in China. 

The British found five thousand natives on the north end 
of the island. Under the rule of Great Britain, they are now a 
busy and prosperous community, numbering forty thousand engaged 
in trade and the fisheries. The foreign population is perhaps one 
thousand. 




TKAD1NG-JUNK. 



CHAPTER XT. 

FROM HONG-KONG TO CANTON. 

The Chinese Coasting-Trade. — Chinese Smugglers. — Canton River-Banks. — Aspect of 
Canton. — The British Concession. — The American Hongs. — The Consul and the 
Taou-tai. — The Diet of the Cantonese. — Manufactures of Canton. — The Temples of 
Canton. 

Canton, Deceniber SSth; Steamer Kin-San. — American side- 
wheel steamers cany the foreign coasting-trade between Hong- 
Kong and Macao westward, Hong-Kong and Canton northward, 
and Hong-Kong, Swatow, Amoy, Xing-po, and Foo-Choo, on the 
eastern coast. 

We occupied, with two friends, the saloon and upper cabins of 

the Kin-San, while the lower deck bore four hundred Chinese, 

chiefly traders, who pay a fare of a Mexican dollar for a voyage of 

ninety miles. The purser brought us the box which contained the 

collection of dollars for this voyage. Many were rejected. The 

coins were genuine, but almost every piece had been clipped. The 

deficiency was made up in " cash." From the deck, we noticed a 

native trader, who at intervals advanced to the bulwark, and threw 

into the water small bunches of hay and straw. We observed that, 

in every case, natives rowed from the shore in small boats, and 

picked up this refuse. Our friends, who knew the trick, informed 

us that the bundles of hay and straw contained packages of opium. 

Another trader dropped a sealed bottle into the river. A partner, 

who was waiting on the bank, took it up and found in it the prices 
19 



234 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

current of opium at London. Smuggling wears only this thin 
covering in China. 

Our course for forty -five miles — half our voyage — lay among sea- 
islands, giving us only occasional glimpses of the main-land. We 
then entered the narrow channel of the deep river, promiscuously 
called the North and the Canton. The banks are lined with the 
" Bogue" forts, before the " Opium War" regarded by the Chinese 
as a reliable defence. The victors stipulated that these forts shall 
not again be garrisoned. They are now falling into ruin. Thus 
Canton, the southern capital of China, is absolutely defenceless, with 
a British naval and military station at its very door. Might not 
Christian merchants in the East be content with this ? Whampoa, 
some fifteen miles down the river, is the outpost of the foreign trade 
carried on at Canton. The river-banks below Whampoa are dull 
and monotonous. Above that place they present scenes of tropical 
luxuriance and beauty. The valley expands, and is covered with 
sugar-plantations, banana and orange groves, and the surrounding 
hills are crowned with pagodas. Canton stands on the right bank 
of the river, but projects in long suburbs over the opposite shore. 
Neither Nagasaki, nor Yokohama, nor Osaka, nor Han-Kow, nor 
Tien-Tsin, nor Shanghai, nor Hong-Kong, nor Peking, gives the 
stranger so effective an impression of a great city. 

We moored at the wharf in the midst of a floating city of three 
hundred thousand souls. Canton, like the surrounding provinces, 
is traversed by canals, which bring to its wharves passengers in 
immense numbers from all parts of the empire. The inventive 
talent, as well as the frugality of the Chinese, is in nothing more 
conspicuous than in the provision which is made for these wayside 
travellers. There are blocks and streets of gayly-painted and deco- 
rated floating inns or taverns, shops for supplying all wants with- 
out the delay and cost of going ashore. Our passage through these 
winding streets and alleys gave us some odd revelations of marine 
life. All manner of domestic occupations are carried on without 
fear of annoyance, or affectation of privacy. Chins are shaven, 
queues are plaited, dinners are cooked and served, clothes are made, 
washed, and mended, children are dressed, whipped, and put to 



THE TOU-TAI'S NOTE. 235 

bed, that is to say, laid on a mat and fastened with a cord around 
their waists, and tied to a mast to keep them from falling overboard. 
Even "field-sports" are not wanting. A favorite exercise of this 
kind is the chase of the wharf-rat. We saw one caught, skinned, 
spitted, and put on charcoal. This amusement is pursued chiefly 
by women and children. The fishing with cormorants is a vocation 
of a large class. 

Our party had no sooner reached shore, than it broke into fac- 
tions. The younger members extemporized a guide and boat, 
crossed the river, and were soon lost in studying carved ivory, 
shell, and sandal- wood boxes, pagodas and toilet-cases, and orna- 
ments of gold, silver, jasper, and jade. Mr. Seward, more politic, 
visited the British Concession. If they found the fabrics of Canton 
more exquisite than they had imagined, he found the foreign settle- 
ment more spacious and elegant than the people of Shanghai and 
Hong-Kong allow it to be. There are thirty or forty spacious 
foreign hongs, an Episcopal church, built of white marble, and a 
club-house with a good library and billiard-room ; on the bank, a 
promenade, handsomely-ornamented with gardens, which rejoices 
in the name of Cha-min (Sand-face). 

The American houses, Russell & Company and Smith, Archer 
& Company, finding that the acquisition of title by Americans 
within the British Concession was attended with some uncertainty, 
have rebuilt their old factories in the Chinese city outside the Con- 
cession, and we are here the guests of those well-known hongs. 

December 29th. — Archdeacon Grey is a philo-Chinese. He has 
resided here nineteen years, and he kindly offers us his invaluable 
assistance in the exploration of Canton. 

Meantime, the United States consul, anticipating that Mr. Sew- 
ard would esteem it an act of becoming courtesy to call on the 
Taou-tai of the province, addressed a note to that functionary. He 
remitted to the consul the following well-argued and most conclu- 
sive answer : 

" In answer to your note stating that the Honorable "William 
H. Seward, formerly Secretary of State, having visited Peking, and 



236 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

called at the foreign office there, had arrived in Canton, and pro- 
posed to appoint a time to call, etc., 1 have to say that, considering 
his Honor Seward has laid aside his office, and therefore there can 
be no consulting upon public business, and as the foreign office Lis 
sent no notice of his coming, it is not convenient for us to see and 
look each other in the face. 

" Please inform his Honor Seward, the great officer, that it will 
be of no use to come to my office. This reply with my best compli- 
ments, my name and my card." 

The consul, we know not how justly, attributes this decision of 
the Taou-tai to a public misunderstanding between himself and that 
officer, which had arisen before our arrival — the Taou-tai fearing 
that an interview with Mr. Seward might produce some popular 
jealousy. 

Canton is a sphinx, serenely indulging in calm recollections, and 
seeming to smile with equal contentment on time and change. We 
have interrogated it. How shall we be able to record its responses. 

The city covers a very large plain. Some of the streets are ten 
feet wide, they average seven ; all irregular and without a plan. 
They are travelled chiefly on foot, but almost everywhere sedan- 
chairs can be used. Paved with flat granite blocks, the sewerage 
is concealed, and in this one Chinese city there is no want of public 
cleanliness. An untidy person is as rarely seen in the streets here, 
as a tidy one in the streets of Peking or Han-Kow. Occasionally, 
we passed a dwelling, palatial in its dimensions and embellishment, 
but, generally speaking, the city presents merely a mass of shops. 
The floors are on a level with the streets, the houses without veran- 
das or porches, and entirely open in front. The buildings are 
narrow, usually of one story, often twenty feet high, and each 
has an attic. It is a Chinese proverb that " ill-luck follows ridge- 
beams which connect with each other in a continuous line." 
Hence the roofs are of unequal height, and the boards which pro- 
ject from them over the streets, to protect travellers from the sun 
and rain, are irregularly placed. The material of the fragile walls 
is dark-brown brick. Every one knows that the Chinese write from 
right to left, and in downward columns. The sign-boards, painted 



DIET OF THE CANTONESE. 237 

in rich vermilion or gilded on dark blue, instead of being horizontal, 
bang perpendicularly, everywhere obstructing the passenger. The 
shops are gorgeously ornamented. Helmbold's patent-medicine 
shop on Broadway would not be out of place here. There are no 
street monuments. The streets are often short and curved, they 
branch at all angles, and sometimes are continued through very 
narrow gates or mere door-w T ays. It thus happens that there is no 
long vista, and Canton is a labyrinth, which only one who is prac- 
tised therein can thread. It is divided into quarters for the accom- 
modation of divers kinds of business more completely than any 
European city. Bankers have their exclusive Wall Streets ; the 
mercantile shops are in districts removed from manufactories ; em- 
broiderers, silk-weavers, cotton-weavers, lapidaries, jewellers, and 
carvers, have separately their own quarters. Only vegetables, 
fruits, fish, meat, poultry, and game, are displayed everywhere. 

The dwellers in Canton are epicureans. They have fish from 
the rivers and fish from the sea — veal, mutton, venison, pigs, kids, 
ducks, geese, grouse, pheasants, quails, and ortolans. Whatever 
they can serve you at the Astor-House, you can command here — 
ay, more than can be found on the Astor-House carte / for, in the 
midst of the tempting display in the provision-shops, are seen the 
carefully-dressed carcasses of infinite rats and unmistakable saddles 
of dogs, while here and there you notice in the shop-windows a 
placard which announces that " black cat is served hot, at all 
hours." A decoction of snakes is sold as a medicine. As we were 
passing a small lake, a boy in our train waded waist-deep and 
brought out a water-snake. We urged him to throw the un- 
fortunate reptile back, but he .declined, and, bruising its head, he 
put his finger to his mouth by way of informing us that it was to 
be his supper. 

Rope is made here by the same process as among us, but a 
greater variety of materials is used. Besides hemp, they work 
bamboo, ratan, and tanned and untanned hides. 

A primitive process is resorted to in bleaching. The operator 
takes clean water by the mouthful and spurts it over the fabric. 
Calendering is clone as it was in Europe before the invention of 



238 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

modern machinery. The cloth is passed under a stone roller which 
the operative rocks with his feet. The gloss produced is unequalled. 
We entered a flouring-mill — a blinded cow, at the end of a shaft, 
moves each of the seven pairs of stones. The operation is perfect, 
and the animals seem sound and healthy. The human foot moves 
the winnowing and bolting processes. 

~No stranger could conceive the excellence or the cheapness of 
artistic production. Mr. Seward, fancying a carving of sandal-wood 
suitable for a door-way, valued it at three hundred dollars. It was 
offered him at sixteen ! 

It can hardly be believed that the extensive manufacture of 
silks in China is carried on without the use of the " Jacquard " 
loom. The workshop is without a floor. The primitive hand- 
loom, with the operator's bench, is placed in an excavation. They 
insist here that the moisture of the ground imparts a porcelain gloss 
to the silk. Silk-embroidery is the most important manufacture. 
This toilsome and exhausting labor is performed exclusively by 
men, instead of being devolved on delicate women, as in European 
countries. We bought, at nominal prices, articles which would 
have a fabulous value at home. 

Lacquer- ware is made, though less extensively than in Japan. 
This is the process : A frame of the required article is made of thin 
wood or veneering perfectly seasoned. This frame is covered inside 
and out with soft silk-paper, made to adhere smoothly by use of a 
glutinous solution. When the paper has perfectly dried, a coating 
of pulverized granite, mixed in a fine oil, is spread over the surface. 
This granite paste hardens in its turn, and now the process of 
lacquering begins. The lacquer is a vegetable juice imported from 
India in earthen jars, and, when fresh, is milk-white ; when exposed 
to the air, it thickens and becomes black. It is applied with a 
brush and left to dry. No less than eight successive coats are put 
on, sometimes more. The Chinese, in speaking of a fool, use the 
proverb that " he wants the ninth coating of lacquer." After the 
lacquering is completed, the ornamentation, usually in vermilion 
and gold, takes place. Professional artists make the designs in 
perforated paper. 



THE TEMPLE OF THE DRAGON".' 239 

A large district in the city is devoted to the manufacture and 
sale of ornaments in jade. A Chinese gallant, speaking of a lady, 
says she is " as beautiful as jade." We failed to understand the 
secret of its value until informed of the firmness of its texture. A 
piece of this stone, weighing five pounds, has the dull appearance 
of a common pebble. It is sawed into plates of the required thick- 
ness by the use of a fine wire moved by hand. After this, turning- 
lathes and lapidaries' instruments are employed. With these it is 
shaped into finger-rings, ear-rings, bracelets, bangles, buckles, cups, 
vases, and the like. The best jade is that which shades from milky 
white to clear green. 

We notice that women of the higher class wear a kind of orna- 
ment peculiar to Canton. It consists of a head-dress or cap, brace- 
lets or finger-rings, made of filagree gold, delicately enamelled with 
the blue kingfisher's feathers, and heavily studded with pearls and 
gems. 

Among temples, we visited first that of Pak-tai (the Dragon), a 
Taouictic deity. The dragon is one of the sacred emblems of China. 
Before that emblem stands a shrine, and below this a living rep- 
resentative of the monster in the shape of a pretty little bright- 
green snake, which coils in the branches of a dwarfed tree, cultivated 
in a small garden-vase. Incense is offered equally on the shrine 
of the carved dragon, and before the living representation in the 
tree. The offerings are such as the snake does not disdain, but 
such as the fabled dragon perhaps might not thank his votaries for. 
They consist of tea and eggs. When merchants contract partner- 
ships, or masters and apprentices execute indentures, they bring 
engrossed copies of the covenants, and burn them with incense 
under the tree. In this way they bring the contents of the articles 
to the notice of the god for his approval and blessing. When the 
contracts have been fully performed, the parties come again to the 
presence of the sacred snake, and with solemn religious ceremony 
declare mutual acquittal and satisfaction. " Holy water " is con- 
stantly kept in vases, from which it is carried away in phials for the 
curing of diseases. When a second affliction falls on a bereaved 
family, it indicates that the grave of the deceased relation is an 



240 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



unlucky one. In that case the bones are exhumed and washed in 
this water, and then removed to a more hospitable sepulchre. From 
this temple we passed into a long street in which every shop-win- 
dow is filled with bars of bullion, fans, hats, shoes, and garments 
of every pattern cut from fancy-colored paper, and put up in pack- 
ages with a prayer impressed on each packet. These parcels are 
sold to mourners, who burn them in incense before the shrine, be- 
lieving that in this way they convey to the departed friends the 
material substances of which the paper articles are the imitation. 

Of the Buddhist temples, the most celebrated is the Honan. 
It is, with its extensive monastery, called also the Temple of the 
" Ocean Banner;" but why the "Ocean Banner," we cannot con- 
jecture. Spacious areas here are occupied by " sacred " pigs, goats, 



& '' ' ' ~'~' • V ^ 





ENTRANCE TO THE TEMPLE OF HONAN. 



THE TEMPLE OF THE FLOWERY FOPvEST. 241 

sheep, chickens, ducks, and geese. Notwithstanding the reverential 
devotion which the monks show to these animals, the idle boys who 
followed us into the temple took a wicked delight in " stirring up " 
the fat, holy swine with pike-staves, and making them grunt for 
our entertainment. The monks have separate cloisters, and, besides 
these, one spacious and common hall, which, having undergone 
some special form of consecration, is regarded as an auspicious 
chamber for the departure of the soul in death. When a brother's 
last hour is supposed to be near, he is brought to this chamber, 
possibly with the unintentional effect of hastening his entrance to 
anticipated bliss. Not far from this happy death-chamber is a 
sanctified and auspicious charnel-house. The body deposited in 
this lucky vault remains here in waiting until Buddha, being con- 
sulted, indicates a lucky day for the ceremony of cremation. Be- 
yond the charnel-house is a furnace in which the process is con- 
ducted. The ashes are gathered in a vase, and are deposited with 
others in a temporary mausoleum. When the fulness of time has 
arrived, and an auspicious day has come, the vase is emptied into 
a common sarcophagus, and so the funeral-rites are at last ended. 

Leaving the " Ocean Banner," w T e visited the Temple of the 
"Flowery Forest." Its pantheon contains images not only of gods 
of whom the Greeks or Romans never dreamed, but of more gods 
than they ever worshipped. Think of five hundred colossal wooden 
figures, of all complexions, black, white, and red, with distorted 
features and limbs, and dressed in purple, crimson, and gold, sitting 
in close order around the walls of a saloon, equal to the largest in 
the British Museum. These are the guardian genii of China. 
Each is a deified apostle or saint of the religion. These figures 
were presented to the monastery .by one of the emperors, and per- 
haps all were carved by one artist. If he failed to impart a natural 
human expression to any among them, it must be admitted in his 
favor that, in their hideous distortions, no two are alike. We were 
kindly received by the monks. The abbot, a man of reverend 
mien, wears purple, a cap which might be mistaken for a mitre, and 
a staff in the shape of a crozier. As we came in advance of the 
evening service, they entertained us in the spacious court with 



242 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

delicious tea and dried fruits. The brethren showed by their con- 
versation a vague knowledge of foreign countries. They feared 
that the disasters which have befallen France may encourage Rus- 
sian aggression against China. They understand something of the 
great civil war in the United States, and rejoice in its results. 
While we were thus engaged, a group of ladies exquisitely dressed, 
and having the least of all feet, came into the court accompanied by 
many children. This party was followed by a retinue of well- 
dressed servants, bearing large ornamented paper boxes, tilled with 
votive offerings, paper shoes, fans, and hats, as before described. 
They were waiting until the midnight hour, to burn these offerings 
in incense for the repose and cheer of deceased ancestors. Although 
the women made no mirthful demonstration, they were animated 
and cheerful, seeming to regard the ceremony in which they were 
engaged rather as a festal than a funereal one. They made no 
advances to us, but showed much delight with the caresses we 
bestowed on their pretty children. 

At the service, the monks kindly seated Mr. Seward on a wooden 
bench, the only thing of the kind in the temple, in a good position 
to see the ceremony. The hall of worship is sixty feet square, with 
a lofty ceiling. In its centre, a gigantic, triple- carved statue, in a 
sitting posture, representing Buddha in his three " states " — the face 
looking to the left, symbolic of oblivion, or the past', that looking 
forward, expressive of activity, t\\e present ; the third, looking to the 
right, contemplation, or the future. The "Flowery Forest," then, 
is a temple dedicated to a religion, older than our own, which pre- 
sents, in a vague, misty way, two of the principles of the Christian 
Church : one, the incarnation of the Supreme ; the other. His pres- 
entation in three persons, one and indivisible. Are these analo- 
gies merely accidental coincidences, or are they different outgrowths 
of the same innate ideas, or are they shadowy forms of a common 
revelation? The service consisted in a solemn, measured, and de- 
votional intonation of a long and varied liturgy. Occasionally, a 
bell tinkled, to indicate a change in the order of the prayers. At 
this sound, the monks prostrated themselves, and brought their 
foreheads to the ground. At other times, they changed their pos- 



THE TEMPLE OF LONGEVITY. 243 

tures toward the triune image, or walked in solemn procession 
around it, keeping time to a muffled drum and gong. Offerings 
are made of wheat, rice, and millet. These being deemed now 
consecrated, they were, at the conclusion of the ceremony, conveyed 
in a tripod, and scattered over the paved court of the temple, that 
they might be gathered by the fowls of the air, and so be saved 
from human profanation. The temple contains a very fine dagoba 
of white marble, built over a relic of a former incarnate Buddha. 
Its pedestal, a lower story, is ornamented with various allegorical 
tablets, on which Buddha is represented riding here on a dragon, 
there on a lion, and elsewhere on other animals. Heathen deities, 
as we come among them, seem to us to be rather impersonations 
of ideal conditions of human existence, than spiritual conceptions 
of a superior order of beings. 

There is a temple dedicated to " Longevity." The idol, a colos- 
sal figure, badly carved in wood, and painted very red and very 
brown, represents an obese, contented, and lazy old man. This 
temple has a monastery of extraordinary character. Instead of 
cloisters of masonry, the cells are trees ; and, instead of shaven 
monks, the brotherhood is a family of storks, which, daily fed by the 
attendants, live out their long-appointed days, objects of reverence 
and affection. The stork which has the luck to be dedicated to 
" Longevity " is a happy bird. "What a contrast is his to the case 
of the gold-fish, only bred and fattened, in the ponds of the temple 
of the same god, to become the food of the " holy " stork ! 

Whatever doubts there may be about the justice of the Chinese 
claim to the invention of printing, it is pleasant to record that they 
have done honor to the art of arts by dedicating to it shrines, 
tablets, and vases of incense. 

Our survey of the religious institutions closed with a visit to a 
convent of Buddhist nuns, devoted to the care of the sick. The 
superior and the sisterhood received us kindly. Although illiterate, 
they are industrious, tidy, gentle, and prepossessing. They showed 
us not only the meagre hospital wards, but their own very humble 
cells. After all, charity is an essential element of every religion, 
and woman is its truest minister throughout the world. 



CHAPTEE XVI-. 

CANTON {Continued). 

A Chinese Villa. — The Hall of Ancestors. — A Chinese School-Room. — Another Yilla. — 
An Opium-Den. — Extent of Opium-Smoking. — The Chinese Chronometer. — The 
Street of Malefactors. — The Place of Execution. — A City of the Dead. — Canton 
at Night. 

Canton, December 30th. — This morning, without previous invi- 
tation or notice, our reverend guide ushered us into the villa of a 
Chinese gentleman, Poon-ting-gua. It covers several acres, en- 
closed with a solid granite wall. Chinese ladies with their children 
received us graciously. The mansion has a spacious theatre, taste- 
fully arranged, for private entertainments, many pretty boudoirs, 
and a spacious banqueting-hall. After this, we visited the still 
more ambitious dwelling of the mandarin Lee, now exercising the 
office of Taou-tai in the province of Chin-Kiang. This residence 
contains a noble Hall of Ancestors, which, although it opens on 
one side to the sky, resembles very much the old Representative 
Hall in the Capitol at Washington. The Ancestral Hall is the 
chapel used for daily family worship of the gods, as well as of the 
ancestors. The hall is purely Confucian in idea. A shrine in the 
centre supports a tablet on which the names of the ancestors are 
inscribed. Large crimson banners are suspended from the walls, 
which contain, in embroidery, their likenesses, as well as those of 
the family, with heraldic insignia or emblems. The Ancestral 
Hall, moreover, is the judgment-chamber or tribunal in which 
family courts are held. At these courts all births are recorded, 



A GARDEN IN CANTON. 



245 



marriage-contracts celebrated, and all disputes are adjusted. In 
anticipation of his last hour, the head of the house is brought to the 
Ancestral Hall to die, expecting an unobstructed passage thence 




POON-TING-GUA 8 VILLA. 



to the realms above. After his death, his will is published in the 
same chamber. This hall is brilliantly furnished with European 
lamps, clocks, and mirrors. On the present occasion, the altar or 
tablet was graced with a porcelain salver, on which rested a cold 
roast-pig, weighing fifteen or twenty pounds. The dish was flanked 
with conserves, cakes, and flowers. A daughter of the house, mar- 
ried three days ago, comes in procession to-day, to pay her parting 
visit to her family, and these were the offerings to ancestors pro- 
vided for the celebration of this important domestic event. At the 
conclusion of the ceremony, in such cases, the oblations are distrib- 
uted among the servants of the family. 



246 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

We were particularly interested in the school-room, where the 
boys are educated ; the girls are not educated at all. With its 
arrangement of tables, desks, black-board, books, and slates, the 
apartment might be mistaken for a school-room at home. All the 
pupils read the lessons of every sort aloud, and all at once, and 
commit them to memory. The pedagogue differs but little, except 
in dress, from the school-master the world over. The master in this 
present school is an ingenuous as well as a spirited man. The 
instrument of his discipline laid on his desk, and he did not hesi- 
tate to admit that he frequently employs it, believing probably in 
Solomon's instruction, "he that spareth his rod, hatcth his son." 
The Chinese boys have all the natural manner and modesty of well- 
bred children. One bright-eyed little lad of eight years, with great 
reverence, asked Mr. Seward's " honorable age." 

We were received by another family, in a very spacious villa 
near the Honan. We noticed, with some surj>rise, here, the im- 
jpluvium, rendered so famous by the descriptions of Pompeii. Is it 
likely that the Chinese have preserved a feature of villa architecture 
which the Western nations have lost % The proprietor and the ladies 
of his family conducted us through their sumptuous abode, with 
perfect refinement of manner, betraying not the least shyness or 
curiosity. 

The tea-house in Canton holds the place of the ale-house, cafe, 
or restaurant, in European cities. Rich and poor promiscuously 
gather there, and are served without respect of persons. 

In returning from the villa, we opened a narrow door and made 
our way through a dark passage to a suite of small rooms, faintly 
lighted from the roof. The seclusion, darkness, and silence of the 
place, indicated that something furtive was going on there. On 
either side of a long chamber was a dais divided into sections, in 
each section two men reclining vis-a-vis — between them a minia- 
ture table six inches high. We were in an opium-den, and these 
persons were the victims. Before each of the smokers, on the 
table, rested a pipe, a tiny opium-pot, and a burning lamp. Here, 
as in the tea-house, there is no respect of rank or wealth. The 
poor and the rich lie down together. Each assists the other in the 



OPIUM-SMOKERS. 



247 



delicate task of igniting the opium, and filling the bowl of the pipe. 
We spoke to two or three of the smokers, who were only at the 
beginning of the siesta, and received from them respectful and 
gentle answers. "We tried in vain to rouse others to consciousness, 
who were in the stage of blissful revery, although their eyes were 




OPIUM-SMOKERS. 



open, and they were sadly smiling. When the smoker recovers 
from the inebriation, if he has sufficient strength he repairs home ; 
otherwise, he is removed to another apartment, and remains there 
perhaps twenty-four hours, recovering strength to depart. Was it 



20 



24:8 JAPAN", CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

an imagination of ours that the keeper of this hell wore a base and 
sinister look as he stood behind his counter in a dark closet, sur- 
rounded by packages of the pernicious drug, -which he weighed out 
to his customers a pennyweight of opium against a pennyweight 
of silver ? 

The books we have read at home, and the discussions we have 
heard here as well as there, have prepared us to see the disastrous 
effect of opium-smoking on every side in China. The denunciation 
of the practice is justified by all-sufficient proof that it is destructive 
of physical and intellectual energy. Statistics show a vast increase 
of the consumption of the drug, since its free importation has been 
allowed. The Chinese Government has given its sanction to the 
wide-spread denunciation by its persistent and earnest opposition 
to the opium-trade. We are agreeably disappointed, however, by 
the absence of evidence of the evil fruits of the practice which we 
had anticipated. Except in this den where we purposely went to 
seek the vice and its victims, we have not met, in any part of the 
country, a person of either sex, or of any age, whose appearance, 
conversation or conduct, indicated an excessive indulgence. Euro- 
peans and Americans here agree in representing the practice as 
wide-spread and pernicious, but, when interrogated concerning 
their observation, they assure you that they know of a coolie, a 
house-servant, a mechanic, a clerk, perhaps a trader, who has 
become inefficient or unreliable by the indulgence. But the best- 
informed persons agree that cases of this kind are neither more 
frequent nor more extensive than those of habitual alcoholic intem- 
perance in the United States. Moreover, we are inclined to think 
that the cost of the drug, when balanced against the low wages of 
labor, lifts the abuse beyond the reach of the working-classes. 

In the matter of the regulation of time, the Chinese do not keep 
up with Western science. There is a tower here devoted to that 
purpose. Each hour is announced in a printed placard posted on 
the outer wall. The chronometer, however, which is used in the 
tower, is a water-clock, the clumsy clepsydra of ancient Greece. 

A branch staircase from the Time-Tower brought us to the 
government printing-office, which publishes all official documents, 



A CHINESE ACELDAMA. 249 

including a copy of the Peking Gazette. None of our modern 
improvements are used. The carving of the wooden type, the 
spreading of the India-ink over them, the taking of the impression, 
all are done by hand. 

The Chinese Government is based on two fictions : first, that 
the emperor is the Son of Heaven ; second, that he is the parent of 
the Chinese people. In harmony with these principles, loyalty to 
the state is inculcated not only as a religious Jbut as a filial duty. 
But all sentimental fictions are liable to abuse, equally in politics 
and religion. The code of Draco was not more cruel than the 
parental discipline of the Chinese empire. Passing by the palace 
of the Taou-tai, with its ostentatious imperial banners, we turned a 
sharp corner, and entered a long, narrow, cheerless street. Here, 
no gay sign-boards or banners relieved the night. The shops are 
sombre, and there are few travellers. It is the malefactor road — 
the street through which the condemned convicts pass, from the 
palace to the place of execution. It was almost night when we 
were admitted, under a strong but low gateway, to a close area a 
hundred feet long, scarcely more than twenty feet wide ; on one 
side low stone-buildings ; on the other a high blind wall ; a walk 
paved with large flat stones in the middle of the court. A potter 
was noiselessly at work shaping vessels, some to be used for re- 
ceiving the blood, others the hands and feet, and others the heads 
of the victims. Sometimes only a single execution takes place, but 
usually short delays are made for the convenience of bringing sev- 
eral executions together. They vary in number from two to fifty, 
and, in times of political disturbance or flagrant piracy, fifty and 
even a hundred' executions take place at once. Dr. Grrey, who 
has studied Chinese history carefully, is of opinion that no field of 
battle ancient or modern has witnessed so much violent destruction 
of human life as this Aceldama. The customary form is decapita- 
tion. "When the condemned come within the gate, they march up 
the paved walk and take their places, kneeling inward on either 
side. An imperial officer at the upper end of the court reads, in a 
distinct -voice, a rescript of their names, crimes, and sentences. A 
practised executioner, with a long sword which he wields with both 



250 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

hands, proceeds down the line. The culprits stretching their necks 
forward, the executioner, swinging the instrument in continued 
circles, completely severs a head at every blow. The heads fall 
into vases filled with lime ; nevertheless the pavement is besmeared 
with blood, and the effluvia rising from this horrible place taint 
the atmosphere of the most distant parts of the city. "We saw 
crosses leaning against the wall, prepared for inflicting punishment 
in that form, and many baskets, each of which contained a head 
ready to be transported to the city gates, and to distant parts of the 
empire. 

The scene we next visited is one which, although sad and 
solemn, is touching and beautiful. This is an extensive plain, 
ornamented with gardens and lakes, fragrant with flowers, and 
musical with the songs of birds. It is the temporary resting-place 
of the dead while awaiting — a day or many days, a month or many 
months, a year or many years — an auspicious time and place for 
final interment. This city of the dead is divided into blocks, and 
traversed by rectilinear paved streets. Instead of dwellings, the 
squares are covered with charnel-houses, and these are already 
numbered by thousands. They are built of stone, and kept with 
perfect cleanliness and order. The charnel-houses, one story high, 
are divided into two apartments — the front, a reception-hall with 
tablets and an altar, before which a lamp continually burns, and on 
which offerings of tea, fruit, and flowers are daily renewed. This 
room is occupied by the relations of the deceased, generally sons or 
daughters, who console the dead not only by day, but through the 
long watches of the night. A couch or divan along the wall serves 
for their repose. In the inner chamber rest the unburied, or the 
exhumed remains enclosed in a costly carved coffin, covered with 
a magnificent purple or scarlet pall. Around the coffin are figures 
or statues, either carved, or of porcelain, which, gayly dressed and 
bearings fans or cups, are ministering to the wants of the sleeping 
dead. "When a stranger dies in Canton, information is conveyed 
to his friends, however distant. His remains rest here until prep- 
arations for his interment have been made, in the part of the em- 
pire where he lived. The " city of the dead," like our cemeteries, 



NIGHT ASPECT OF CANTON. 251 

is under the care of an association, and its expenses are defrayed 
by charges regulated by tariff. 

It was quite nine o'clock, a star-lit night, when we emerged 
from this silent, mysterious place — the only one we have ever seen 
in which, though it is devoted to the dead, cheerfulness and hope 
prevail over gloom and despondency. We passed through a series 
of graves which surround it, starting a thousand storks, which kept 
watch and ward over the cemetery. These birds have a peculiar 
adaptation to sacred places. They rest always on one leg, the head 
turned backward under the wing. Their utterances are made by 
clapping their mandibles together like a pair of castanets. Our 
coolies bore burning lamps. They carried us very quickly across a 
rude, uninhabited plain, which, by reason of its vicinity to the city, 
we expected to find a scene of disorder and peril. Our experience 
is that neither assassin nor robber of any kind, by night or by day, 
awaits the sojourner in Canton. We occasionally stopped to inquire 
the significance of a candle burning in the grass near the roadside, 
and before which lay offerings of tea, wheat, fruit, or millet. The 
explanation was, that some person, passing the place, had stumbled 
or met with other accident, the mischievous work of some discon- 
tented spirit or demon. The light and the offerings are designed 
to propitiate him. 

The night aspect of Canton is one of quiet and peace. All 
shops, stores, and manufactories, are closely shut ; only here and 
there a paper lantern dangles from the eaves, before the house of a 
mandarin or a wealthy denizen. The tread of the foot-passenger is 
only occasionally heard, and there are no processions, groups, or 
crowds. Light streams through the crevices of the dwellings, and 
often the clink of the anvil and the sound of the hammer indicate 
that the inhabitants have only withdrawn from the operations of 
sale in which they were engaged during the day, to manufacture 
new articles to sell to-morrow. Rarely, very rarely, one may hear 
the mellow tones of a flute, but never in any part of the city does 
there arise the sound of debauch or revelry. A gentle rap by our 
conductor brought to the postern the keeper of each of the numer- 
ous gates through which we had to pass. A kind word assured us 



252 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



that he was prepared for our coming, and was interested for our 
safety. Moving on so quietly in our chairs, we had fallen into 
the dreamy state of contemplation ascribed to Buddha, when the 
last of the city-gates, the gate of "Everlasting Peace," lifted its 
head and allowed us to pass under the door of hospitable "Kee- 
Chung." 




C1ILNESE TOMBS. 



CHAPTER XYIL 

AT HONG-KONG AGAIN. 

Chinese Emigration to the United States. — The Canton Fisheries. — American Houses in 
China. — A Combination of Gamblers. — A Dinner at the United States Consulate. — 
. Mr. Seward's Speech. — Oriental and Eastern Civilization. — Policy of China. — Pros- 
pects of China. 

Hong-Kong, January 1, 1871. — The Kin-San, on her return- 
voyage, besides ourselves, had three cabin-passengers, all merchants 
of Macao. She had four hundred in the steerage : one hundred 
and fifty of them Chinese traders between Canton and Hong-Kong; 
the others, voluntary Chinese emigrants going to ship at Hong- 
Kong for San Francisco. The Chinese emigration to the United 
States goes exclusively from the province of Quan-Tong (Canton) 
through the port of Canton. The Chinese emigration to other 
American countries, the West Indies, and South America, goes 
from the same province, but through the Portuguese port of Macao. 
The laws of the United States, which require consular examination 
and a certificate in each case that the emigration is voluntary, 
and made on sufficient guarantee, have proved entirely effective in 
preventing abduction, fraud, and violence. The emigrant to the 
United States is contented and cheerful. It is not so, however, 
with the emigrant who embarks at Macao. The system of abduc- 
tion prevailing there is an abomination scarcely less execrable than 
the African slave-trade. The emigrants are promiscuously taken 
by fraud and force ; ignorant of their destination, and without seen- 



254 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

rity for their labor or their freedom, they are hurried on board sail- 
ing-craft. These vessels are built in the United States, and they 
appear at Macao under the United States flag, promising to convey 
the emigrants to our country. So soon as they have cleared the 
port, they hoist the colors of Peru, San Salvador, or some other 
Spanish- American state. It is when this fraud is discovered that 
scenes of mutiny and murder occur, of which we have such frequent 
and frightful accounts. It shall not be our fault if, in the cause of 
humanity, the United States Government is not informed of this 
great outrage against our national honor. 

Chinese versatility has a fine illustration in the Canton fisheries. 
On either side of our steamer, as we came down the river, was a 
tub or cistern holding five hundred gallons of water. The water 
contained great quantities of living fish produced in ponds in 
the vicinity of Canton. Arriving at the wharf here, a sluice was 
opened at the bottom of each cistern, and the fish, rushing out with 
the rapid current, dropped into smaller tubs, and were conveyed 
either to market, or to ships going to sea. 

January 2d. — We are pleased with the reassurance we receive 
here from home, that a semi-monthly line of steamers is to be 
established by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. This line 
is a development of enterprise which, though noiseless, is extend- 
ing the American name and influence in the East. 

The American houses in China are as follows : 

Russell & Company, with establishments at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Canton, 
Foo-Choo, Kiu-Kiang, Han-Kow, and Tien-Tsin. 

Augustine Heard & Company, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Canton, and Foo-Choo. 

Oliphant & Company, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Canton, and Foo-Choo. 

Bull, Pardon & Company, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Canton, and Foo-Choo. 

Smith, Archer, & Company, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Canton. 

Silas E. Burrows & Company, at Hong-Kong. 

E. J. Sage & Company, at Hong-Kong. 

H. Fogg & Company, at Shanghai. 

A. C. Farnham & Company, at Shanghai. 

To all these houses our grateful acknowlegments — to Kussell 



A SPEECH BY MR. SEWARD. 255 

& Company, the most full, because they have claimed us as their 
guests, in their several agencies throughout the empire. 

Hong-Kong has a social grievance unknown in the United 
States, except in the new States and Territories — a villanous combi- 
nation of gamblers, like the pests of the same kind whose atrocities 
stain the history of Vicksburg and San Francisco. The judicial 
officers confess themselves powerless to suppress these criminals. 

To-day the United States consul, Mr. Bailey, entertained Mr. 
Seward, with the large party gathered to meet him, at the consulate. 
To Mr. Bailey's speech of welcome, Mr. Seward replied as follows : 

" The questions which engaged the American people, in* the 
period to which you have so kindly referred, were, the elimination 
of slavery from the United States, and the saving of the republic 
from dissolution. Both these questions were at last decided for the 
right, in a fearful civil war. I think there is not now living, on 
this round earth, a man who, even though he was then a sympa- 
thizer with the rebellion, now regrets that beneficent adjustment. 

" Our distinguished statesman, Daniel Webster, foresaw only 
the struggle. His utmost confidence in the happy end was in the 
expression of his earnest hope that his dying eyes might not close 
on a dismembered, a disunited, a belligerent republic. On us, how- 
ever, who have survived both him and the convulsion, there opens 
a bright and glorious prospect — it is the spread of republican insti- 
tutions over the whole American Continent, involving by absolute 
necessity a regeneration of civilization in the East. The United 
States have assumed the lead in this great work, happily with the 
free consent and approbation of all the European nations. 

" The first Emperor of the French, copying from Julius Csesar, 
introduced, in our time, the military empire, as an agency for con- 
quest. The second emperor dedicated it to peace and progress. 
Fortunately for mankind, the innovation has failed for both pur- 
poses. The world is coming to realize, on the contrary, that ' the 
republic? that is to say, not the republic of former ages, but the 
modern republic of our own experience, is always favorable to pros- 
perity and progress, and is everywhere ' on earth peace, good-will 
toward men.' 



256 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

" I have been long engaged studying the great problem of mod- 
ern civilization. In doing so, I have travelled largely on the North 
American Continent, and, with the same object, I am now observing 
Asiatic countries. In this connection, I may make two or three 
observations, without disloyalty to my own country, or to China, 
and without offence to any foreign nation represented here. I do 
not undervalue missionary labors in the East, but the Christian 
religion, for its acceptance, involves some intellectual and social ad- 
vancement which can only be effected through international com- 
merce. I look, therefore, chiefly to commerce for the regeneration 
of China — that commerce to come across the American Continent 
and the Pacific Ocean. I lament to find, in every part of China 
that I visit, despondency concerning that commerce, which, I am 
sure, is not entertained in the United States, or in any other of the 
Western nations. I think that despondency without foundation. 
On the other hand, a foreign commerce, which penetrates the 
northern, the central, and the southern regions of China, is firmly 
established and secured. Not one of the footholds which have been 
gained can ever be lost. The continuance and increase of that 
commerce are guaranteed by the material, moral, social, and politi- 
cal necessities of both continents. 

" Say what men may, human progress is compelled by the laws 
of Providence. Obstacles, indeed, must occur, and will multiply 
resistance here, and discussions and jealousies in the "West ; but 
there is a subtle moral opinion which pervades mankind, before 
which, sooner or later, all such obstacles disappear. There is no 
assignable measure to the future expansions of this intercontinental 
and regenerating commerce. Although its movements seem to us 
very slow, yet there are abundant evidences that it is neither dying 
out nor retrograding. The daily increasing emigration from south- 
ern China to America, and to the Malay Peninsula, and the Oriental 
Archipelago, is a guarantee of its continuance. That emigration 
works beneficially in three ways : the navigation employed in it 
sustains commerce; it relieves an overcrowded population of sur- 
plus labor ; returning emigrants bring back not only wealth, but 
arts, knowledge, and morals, to renovate their native country. Let 



SPEECH CONTINUED. 257 

it be our task, therefore, to stimulate this emigration. It is essen- 
tial to the growth of international commerce, that the "Western 
states practise equal justice toward China. True commerce involves 
reciprocity, not exclusive gain on either side, and it flourishes 
just in proportion to the good faith and equality with which it is 
conducted. 

" Six or seven years ago, the "Western nations, relinquishing 
individual designs of aggrandizement or advantage in China, were 
represented by enlightened men, among whom were the late Mr. 
Burlingame, Sir Frederick Bruce, and M. Berthemy. They agreed 
in recommending to their several states the policy of bringing China 
into equal political relations with all the "Western states. The 
' Burlingame ' treaty was the fruit of these counsels. They have 
only to be pursued in good faith, to work the best results. No one 
now doubts of the renovation of Japan ; but China, with its four 
hundred millions, exhibits more signs of progress to-day than Japan, 
with its thirty or forty millions, did twenty years ago. I am often 
asked : ' But what of this ancient Chinese Imperial Government, its 
extortions, its timidity, its effeteness, and of this national prejudice, 
the fruit of thousands of years of isolation % ' I answer : ' I do not 
know — no one knows. I only know that imbecility and eifeteness 
always give way before vigor and energy, and that dotage and 
prejudice must give way to truth, justice, and reason. I know not 
what political changes may occur here, but, on the other hand, I 
know it is an error to suppose that revolutions, with whatever de- 
sign they are inaugurated, retard human progress.' I used all the 
influence I had to prevent the late revolution in Japan, because I 
thought it was a retrograde movement ;. I little dreamed that the 
restored Mikado would excel the dethroned Tycoon in emulating 
Western civilization. 

"But I must not enlarge. Gentlemen, you have dedicated 
your fortunes and your lives to the regeneration of China. I 
pray God that you may individually enjoy the rich rewards of 
that devotion ! 

" This day, with its pleasing incidents, will be forever fresh in 
my memory." 



258 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

January Ath. — The Chinese, though not of the Caucasian 
race, have all its political, moral, and social capabilities. Long 
ago, they reached a higher plane of civilization than most of 
the European states attained until a much later period. The 
Western nations have since risen above that plane. The whole 
world is anxiously inquiring whether China is to retrieve the ad- 
vantages she has lost, and if she is to come within the family of 
modern civilized states. Mr. Burlingame's sanguine temperament 
and charitable disposition led him to form too favorable an opinion 
of the present condition of China. In his anxiety to secure a more 
liberal policy on the part of the Western nations toward the ancient 
empire, he gave us to understand, especially in his speeches, that, 
while China has much to learn from the Western nations, she is not 
without some peculiar institutions which they may advantageously 
adopt. This is not quite true. Although China is far from being 
a barbarous state, yet every system and institution there is inferior 
to its corresponding one in the West. Whether it be the abstract 
sciences, such as philosophy and psychology, or whether it be the 
practical forms of natural science, astronomy, geology, geography, 
natural history, and chemistry, or the concrete ideas of govern- 
ment and laws, morals and manners ; whether it be in the sesthetic 
arts or mechanics, every thing in China is effete. Chinese educa- 
tion rejects science ; Chinese industry proscribes invention ; Chi- 
nese morals appeal not to conscience, but to convenience ; Chinese 
architecture and navigation eschew all improvements ; Chinese 
government maintains itself by extortion and terror ; Chinese reli- 
gion is materialistic — not even mystic, much less spiritual. If we 
ask how this inferiority has come about, among a people who have 
achieved so much in the past, and have capacities for greater achieve- 
ment in the future, we must conclude that, owing to some error in 
their ancient social system, the faculty of invention has been ar- 
rested in its exercise and impaired. 

China first became known to the Western world by the discov- 
eries of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. At that period and 
until after the explorations of Yasco de Gama, China appears to 
have been not comparatively great, prosperous, and enlightened, 



CONDITION OF CHINA. 259 

but absolutely so. An empire extending from tne snows of Siberia 
to the tropics, and from the Pacific to the mountain sources of the 
great rivers of Continental Asia, its population constituted one- 
fourth of the human race. Diversified climate and soil afforded all 
the resources of public and private wealth. Science and art devel- 
oped those resources. Thus, when European nations came upon 
the shores of China, in the sixteenth century, they found the 
empire independent and self-sustaining. The Mantchoos on the 
north had invaded the empire and substituted a Tartar dynasty 
at Peking for a native dynasty at Nanking, but the conquerors 
and the conquered were still Chinese, and the change was a revolu- 
tion and not a subjugation. China having thus attained all the 
objects of national life, came to indulge a sentiment of supercilious 
pride, under the influence of which she isolated herself from all 
other nations. Her government from its earliest period was in the 
hands of a scholastic and pedantic class, a class which elsewhere 
has been found incapable of practical rule. Since the isolation 
took place, that class has effectively exercised all the powers of the 
state, in repressing inquiry and stifling invention, through fear 
that change in any direction would result in their own overthrow. 
The long isolation of the empire, and the extirpation of native in- 
vention, have ended in reversing the position of China. From 
being self-sustaining and independent, as she was when found by 
the European states, she has become imbecile, dependent, and help- 
less. Without military science and art, she is at the mercy of 
Western nations. Without the science of political economy, the 
Government is incapable of maintaining an adequate system of 
revenue ; and, without the science of Western laws and morals, it 
is equally incapable of maintaining an impartial and effective ad- 
ministration of justice. Having refused to adopt Western arts and 
sciences, the Government is incapable of establishing and maintain- 
ing a beneficial domestic administration. Insurrections and revo- 
lutions are therefore unavoidable, nor can the Government repress 
them without the aid of the Western powers. She pays the Euro- 
pean nations for making the clothing for her people, and the arms 
with which they must defend themselves. She imports not only 



260 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

the precious metals, but coal and iron, instead of allowing her own 
mines to be opened. She forbids the employment of steam and 
animal power in mechanics, and so largely excludes her fabrics 
from foreign markets. 

Though China would now willingly leave all the world alone, 
other nations cannot afford to leave her alone. Great Britain must 
send her cotton fabrics and iron manufactures. The United States 
must send her steam-engines and agricultural implements, and 
bring away her coolies. Italy, France, and Belgium, must have 
her silks, and all the world must have her teas, and send her their 
religions. All these operations cannot go on without steam-en- 
gines, stationary as well as marine, Hoe's printing-press, and the 
electric telegraph. 

Nov/ for the question of the prospects of China. Before attempt- 
ing to answer this, it will be best to define intelligently the pres- 
ent political condition of China. Certainly it is no longer an abso- 
lutely sovereign and independent empire, nor has it yet become a 
protectorate of any other empire. It is, in short, a state under the 
constant and active surveillance of the Western maritime nations. 
This surveillance is exercised by their diplomatic representatives, 
and by their naval forces backed by the menace of military in- 
tervention. In determining whether this precarious condition of 
China is likely to continue, and whether its endurance is desirable, 
it would be well to consider what are the possible alternatives. 
There are only three : First, absolute subjugation by some foreign 
state ; second, the establishment of a protectorate by some foreign 
state ; third, a complete popular revolution, overthrowing not only 
the present dynasty, but the present form of government, and 
establishing one which shall be in harmony with the interests of 
China and the spirit of the age. The Chinese people, inflated with 
national pride, and contempt for "Western sciences, arts, religions, 
morals, and manners, are not prepared to accept the latter alterna- 
tive. The rivalry of the Western nations, with the fluctuations of 
the balance of their political powers, render it dangerous for any 
foreign state to assume a protectorate. The second alternative is,, 
therefore, out of the question. We have already expressed the 



POLICY OF THE WESTERN POWERS. 261 

opinion that mankind have outlived the theory of universal empire, 
and certainly the absolute subjugation of China by any Western 
state would be a nearer approach to universal empire than Greek, 
or Roman, or Corsican, or Cossack, ever dreamed of. The exercise 
of sovereignty in China by a national dynasty, under the surveil- 
lance and protection of the maritime powers, is the condition most 
favorable to the country and most desirable. The maintenance of it 
seems practicable so far as it depends upon the consent of the mari- 
time surveillant powers. But how long the four hundred millions 
of people within the empire will submit to its continuance is a 
question which baffles all penetration. The present Government 
favors and does all it can to maintain it. Prince Kung and Wan- 
Siang are progressive and renovating statesmen, but a year or two 
hence a new emperor will come to the throne. The literati, no less 
bigoted now than heretofore, have an unshaken prestige among 
the people, and, for aught any one can judge, the first decree of the 
new emperor may be the appointment of a reactionary ministry, 
with the decapitation of the present advisers of the throne. Let it, 
then, be the policy of the Western nations to encourage and sustain 
the sagacious reformers of China, and in dealing with that extraor- 
dinary people to practise in all things justice, moderation, kind- 
ness, and sympathy. Of course, it is not to be expected or desired 
that the foreign surveillance which is now practised will retain its 
present obnoxious and oppressive character. The habit of interven- 
tion, and the habit of acquiescence in it once fixed, surveillance 
will assume the forms of protective tutorship. The interests of 
both parties will require that this tutorship be exercised with leni- 
ency ; gradual amelioration of the political and social condition of 
China will produce mutual sympathy and respect between the pro- 
tectors and the protected, the instructors and the pupil. Some- 
thing of this kind has already happened in the relations between 
the Western states and the Ottoman powers. 

It has been no easy task to set down these hurried reflections 
in the midst of festivities, only brought to an end by the parting 
with so many kind friends. The signal is hoisted, and we go on 

board the Provence. 

21 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A GLANCE AT COCHIN CHINA. 

The Steamer Provence. — Island of Hainan. — Our Fellow-Passengers. — The Mouth of the 
Saigon River. — The City of Saigon. — French Aptitude for Colonization. — French 
Photographs. — The Queen of Cambodia. 

Steamer Provence, South China Sea, January 6th. — Wearied 
with our long wanderings over China, which, though interesting, 
were attended with much fatigue, and with the hospitalities which, 
however delightful, were nevertheless exhausting, we resumed our 
onward voyage with a feeling of relief. 

We are now running down the coast of the large and prosper- 
ous island of Hainan, which is separated from the main-land of 
China by the Gulf of Tonquin. They speak of aborigines on the 
island, but, from what we learn of its subdivision into Chinese 
provinces, and its confessedly great trade, we are inclined to 
believe that its civilization does not differ materially from that of 
the province of Quan-Tong. 

Our steamer, recently L'Imperatrice, of the " Messageries Im- 
periales," is now La Provence, of the " Messageries Rationales," 
changes of name wh'ch illustrate the political versatility of the 
French people. The tout ensemble of passengers and crew is 
scarcely less indicative of social movements in the East. 

There are eleven young men, sons of Japanese daimios, travel- 
ling under the care of a Prussian, who has been their tutor for five 
years. They are now going to finish their studies ; some in Eng- 
land, some in France, some in Germany — the larger number in the 



THE SAIGOX RIVER. 2C3 

United States. It was only when they embarked that they changed 
their native flowing silken dresses, two swords, and wooden shoes, 
for the Western costume. The tawny lads seem to enjoy the 
change prodigiously, for they make during the day as many changes 
of toilet as a Saratoga belle. 

There is, next, an intelligent American merchant of Shanghai, 
on his way to London, as agent of the Chinese Government, to pur- 
chase two " American " merchant-steamers, to be built in England, 
and steam-engines for two " American " ships-of-war, which are 
now on the stocks at Shanghai. Also a Spanish tobacco-merchant 
with his family, going from Manila to visit his early home in Cata- 
lonia. 

Two young Americans, just out of Harvard, are making the 
tour around the world. They are now going to Bangkok, a jour- 
ney which we had purposed making, but were obliged to forego. 
On reaching Saigon, they intend crossing the mountains of Cam- 
bodia to Siam by elephant-train. 

January 1th. — When you are travelling in a foreign country by 
road or river, how provoking it is to pass a capital, historic battle- 
field, ancient university, cathedral, or ruined castle, on the right 
and on the left, without stopping to examine them ! It is just so 
in going around the world. We are now passing the empire of 
Anam, and entering the Saigon River, only eight degrees north of 
the equator. Fahrenheit 83°. The river- water is clear and pure. 
A white light-house, built by the French, rises above the forest on 
the high northern promontory ; the southern bank is a plain cov- 
ered with cocoa-nut groves. The liixuriant beauty of the scene is 
bewildering. While we write, the ocean is left behind us, and the 
broad, dark river shrinks within the width of forty rods. The 
banks are covered with impenetrable jungle of mangoes, bananas, 
bamboos, and a thousand creepers twisting their shrubbery into all 
manner of entanglement, and covering it with flowers. We are 
told that the wild-boar takes refuge here from the tiger on the 
uplands, and we see parrots rearing their chattering broods, while 
the monkeys hold perpetual revel. 



264 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

The river below Saigon has a serpentine course, and is navi- 
gated chiefly by small native vessels, moving gracefully under light 
bamboo sails. The banks rise to greater height as we ascend the 
river, and various kinds of palm grace the different elevations, until 
all give place to the eagle-wood and the cinnamon on the blue 
mountains which overlook the lovely valley. 

Saigon, January 8th. — We closed our eyes last night wishing 
that we might remain forever afloat on the dark water of the Saigon. 
Long before morning, however, swarms of mosquitoes and gnats 
made us impatient for the shore, where we felt sure that flowers, 
birds, and butterflies, were awaiting us. The Blue-book bears no 
name of United States consul at Saigon. From the deck, never- 
theless, we espied the United States flag, and learned, on inquiry, 
that the German who raised it there had left it to the care of 
some friendly native keeper. We inquired no further, and in this 
lonely place, the only one thus far in our voyage, no one inquired 
for us. 

The commandant of La Provence put us ashore in his gig. We 
bargained for the first two carriages we found there, at the rate of 
one dollar an hour for each, and in these vehicles, called " garries," 
each drawn by a rough Chinese pony, and having seats for four 
passengers (a very close fit), a guide, and a servant, we set out on 
our travels in Cochin China. 

Saigon is a native city of from sixty thousand to a hundred 
thousand inhabitants. The European settlement adjoining it differs 
from those we have seen in Japan and China, only in being French. 
This is a matter of no special moment, because all foreigners assim- 
ilate in the East. The population is perhaps two hundred and fifty, 
exclusive of the g?a*rison. There is a public garden filled with 
plants, but it wears an air ofi neglect, in consequence, we think, not 
of declining trade, but of political insecurity growing out of the war 
in Europe. All Eastern potentates and nobles maintain menage- 
ries. The garden at Saigon proclaims itself an appendage to the 
French republic, by a meagre collection of leopards, tigers, bears, 
monkeys, birds, and reptiles. The French Government is building 



A NATIVE OF SAIGON. 



26; 



a large palace for the residence of tlie admiral commanding the 
forces in Eastern waters. 

The native city consists of two towns, standing on two rivers, 
distant two miles from each other, and connected by a firm road. 




-—^-PSS^-ii;^-^ 



NATIVE OF SAIGON. 



The population is by no means homogeneous. The merchants and 
traders are not Cochin Chinese, but chiefly Chinese, and all classes 
speak, to some extent, the French language. A happy accord 
seems to exist between them and the French. All show the pleas- 
ing impress of French manners. We alighted from our vehicles 
whenever we found any thing noticeable, and invariably were 
waited upon by polite and assiduous attendants. We entered and 
inspected a Buddhist temple. The bonzes, with great courtesy, 
showed us every thing it contained. Whenever we stopped, tea, 
fruit, and sherbet, were offered us. The smallest payment was 
thankfully received, and, when we declined, the refreshments were 
urged upon us without cost. In short, Saigon is the only place we 
have found thus far, in the wide world, where everybody seemed 



2G6 JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 

pleased with us, with themselves, and we had reason to be pleased 
with everybody. 

The French have a peculiar facility in effecting colonial assim- 
ilation to their national ways and manners. One experiences the 
same gentle and kind welcome on the banks of the lower St. Law- 
rence that he finds here on the banks of the Saigon. It is almost 
enough to make us wish that the French nation might be more suc- 
cessful in extending their foreign dominion. The whole field of 
French empire in Cochin China, which figures so largely in the 
ambitious manifestoes of the Government in Paris, is hardly more 
than forty miles square. But France, by means of that possession, 
has acquired a protectorate over the province of Cambodia, which 
is adjacent, and nominally belongs to the empire of Anam. The 
sovereign of that empire concedes to France this protectorate over 
Cambodia, in consideration of the French guarantee of the integrity 
of his empire. This great potentate, like the ostentatious fiddler, 
has two strings to his bow ; for, while he thus enjoys this alliance 
with France, he at the same time, as titular vassal, claims protec- 
tion from the Emperor of China. It would be long to tell how, 
after European discoveries in the East Indies, France energeti- 
cally attempted to secure positions advantageous for trade and con- 
quest in Madagascar, Ceylon, and Bengal ; how unsuccessful and 
vain those attempts were, until the great Colbert found in the 
ambitious Louis XIY. a monarch wise enough to accept the 
project of a French East India Company; how successfully that 
company established factories at Mauritius, at Surat, and Pondi- 
chery, and other places in India. It would be sad to tell how, in 
the great war in which France lost nearly all her American posses- 
sions, she also lost nearly all her acquisitions in the East; how 
the French Jesuit missionaries in Cochin China cunningly secured 
from the native emperor the concession of Saigon to Louis XYI. ; 
how the French nation exulted in a gain of this position in the 
rear of Hindostan, from which they might hope to assail and over- 
throw British dominion on the Asiatic Continent ; how this ambi- 
tion of France died, with all ambition of colonial aggrandizement, 
in the great Revolution of ninety-three y how that ambition, in 



AN ARTISAN'S HOUSE. 



267 



regard to the East, revived in 1861, in the period of the Second 
Empire, and Admiral Charner enforced the concession which had 
so long before been made to Louis XVI. 

Saigon is by no means valueless as a seat of commerce. The 
earth has no more fertile fields than those of Cochin China. Amono- 
its products are luxuries the most desired by civilized nations. 
While rice is an abundant staple, Saigon exports the gum of lac- 
quer, cinnamon, and many useful and precious woods. It is not, 




ARTISAN 8 HOUSE AT SAIGON. 



however, chiefly for local trade that France values Saigon. It is a 
convenient station for commercial and postal steam-lines, by which 
she has expected to maintain her prestige as a maritime power of 
the first rank. Her experience has demonstrated the truth of two 
political axioms : First, that the possession of extensive foreign col- 
onies adds immeasurably to the credit and prestige of a nation ; 
secondly, that a nation which cannot maintain peace at home, can- 
not permanently hold foreign possessions. 

As our habit is, we take away from Saigon many photographic 



268 



JAPAN, CHINA, AND COCHIN CHINA. 



illustrations of manners, dress, and scenery. They are French, 
and admirably executed. "We are puzzled, however, in our efforts 
to determine the truthfulness of one of them, notwithstanding its 
official verification. It represents the Queen of Cambodia, protegee 
of the French Empire, with naked feet and ankles, encircled by 
costly gold bangles and jewels, while her head is covered with a 
Parisian bonnet of the year 1862, presented to her, with other 
articles of European fashion, by the French emperor. 




- / / - / / / - • 

QT3TEN OF CAMBODIA. 



PART III. 

THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, STRAITS OF 
MALACCA, AND CEYLON. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE CHINA SEA, SINGAPORE, AND THE STRAITS OF SUNDA. 

Our Distance from Home. — Calm Seas and Temperate Breezes. — Singapore. — A Dispatch 
from Boston. — The People of Singapore. — Their Habitations. — Life in the Tropics. 
— A Dutch Steamer. — Our Crew. — A Question of Kaces. — Kather Hot. — Banca and. 
Sumatra. — The Straits of Sunda. 

China Sea, January 9th. — In the five months since we left 
home, we reckon in distances made, eighteen thousand miles, an 
average of one hundred and twenty miles a day, although it seems 
as if we had been at rest half the time. While we are passing on 
our right the extreme promontory of Cochin China, we are leaving 
on our left, at a distance of one hundred miles, the Philippine Isl- 
ands, the relic of Spanish empire in the East Indies. We continue 
enjoying calm seas and temperate breezes. 

Singapore, January 11th. — Anchored at midnight, and what a 
night! Stifling cabins and myriads of mosquitoes. Is this our 
penance for invading the equator ? 

At sunrise, the United States consul, Mr. Jewell, came on 
board, with Mr. Young, of the house of Busteed & Company. 
They drove us, in a well-hung English carriage, behind two fine 
Australian bays, first to the consulate, where a breakfast awaited 
us, then to Mr. Young's pretty villa, on the hill, where he is kindly 
taking care of us. Three months having elapsed since we heard 
from home, our first inquiry was, whether the telegraph-cable 



272 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

has been laid from Point de Galles to this place. " Yes," said Mr. 
Young, " I received to-day a dispatch which came from Boston in 
twenty-four hours." It is reassuring to come again into instan- 
taneous communication with home and "the rest of mankind." 
The new wire brings European intelligence of six weeks' later date 
than we read at Hong-Kong. This intelligence, however, which 
we so eagerly sought, was contained in a meagre statement. 
" Nothing important happened since republic proclaimed at Paris. 
Much speculation. Probably Orleans family. Papers promise ex- 
pulsion German armies. Perhaps anarchy." 

We enter British India from the east at Singapore. It is the 
chief commercial town of the colony, acquired by purchase and or- 
ganized by the British Government in 1824, as the Eastern Straits 
Settlement ; the name derived from the straits of Malacca. This 
jurisdiction extends north by west to the island of Penang, off the 
Malay Peninsula. Penang is officially regarded as the capital, 
although the business of the government is carried on here. Sin- 
gapore is a free port. It has an aggregate population of one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand, which is rapidly increasing. There are 
five hundred Europeans. British subjects, together with less than 
a dozen citizens of the United States, monopolize "Western naviga- 
tion and commerce. More than half of the population are Chinese, 
chiefly merchants and bankers engaged in the domestic trade, and 
that which is carried on with adjacent Asiatic countries — China, 
Siam, Burmah, Java, and the Eastern Archipelago — others are me- 
chanics and gardeners. It would be an effectual antidote to the 
California croaking against the pagan Chinese, to see the protection 
and encouragement which the British authorities extend to the 
Chinese immigration here. The Jew has not failed to make good 
his position. He is, as everywhere else, a broker in small and sec- 
ond-hand wares. The residue of the population are chiefly native, 
perhaps aboriginal Malays, with an accession of indolent and thrift- 
less immigrants from Hindostan. The seamen are of many Orien- 
tal races, natives of Goa, Javanese, Hindoos, Malays, Burmese, Siam- 
ese, Cingalese, Abyssinians, and negroes. With this conglomerate 
population,, it is not singular that Singapore is a harbor for vagrants 



SINGAPORE AND ITS PEOPLE. 273 

and waifs from all parts of the East. It is almost unnecessary to 
say that Singapore is a central station of commerce between En- 
rope and the far East, Burmah, China, Japan, the Archipelago, and 
Australia. India opium, camphor, and lacquer, Java coffee, China 
silks and teas, Manila tobacco, spices of Sumatra and Borneo, the 
tin of Banda, etc., are exchanged for British and French manufac- 
tures. Ladies will be interested in knowing that Singapore is the 
mart for articles of jewelry and vertu of all sorts, such as civilized 
people no less than barbarians delight in. Parisian and London 
imitations of Oriental articles of those sorts are sold by the natives 
• here to curiosity-seeking Europeans, who would reject them at 
home. But there is also an abundance of native productions, ex- 
quisitely beautiful; sea-shell, coral, precious stones, tigers' claws 
mounted with gold, tigers' skins, and birds-of-paradise, tempt us 
on every side, while the most delicate Chinese porcelain, and carv- 
ings in sandal-wood and eagle-wood for incense, are staples of a 
large trade. 

The European dwellings do not differ from those in the Chinese 
concessions, while those of the Asiatic immigrants, by greater spa- 
ciousness, cleanliness, and comfort, manifest an advance toward 
"Western ideas. This improvement, however, is slow among the 
Malays. When this race became known to the Europeans, they 
were found living in buildings raised on stakes four or five feet 
above the ground, for the desirable purpose of drainage and secu- 
rity against reptiles and wild beasts. The Malays at Singapore 
retain the architectural habits of their ancestors. 

Here, as at Saigon, the foreigners maintain a public garden, but 
this one exhibits the indescribable luxuriance of tropical vegetation, 
under the painstaking hand of the Chinese cultivator, directed by 
European skill. 

The jumble of diverse races has produced a strange medley of 
religions here. There are several Chinese temples, which foreign- 
ers contemptuously call, here as in China, "joss-houses;" one 
Bramin temple, with its sacred cows and goats; half a dozen 
severe-looking Mohammedan mosques ; a Roman Catholic church ; 
and a cathedral of the Church of England. The British Govern- 



274 THE EASTERN" AECHIPELAGO, ETC. 

ment tolerates all these religions, from the same political motive 
with which the emperors tolerated the various modes of worship 
which prevailed in the Roman world. Although these various re- 
ligions in India are not considered by the people as equally true, or 
by the philosophers as equally false, the magistrate regards them as 
equally useful. This toleration produces mutual indulgence, with- 
out religious discord. 

A secretary waited upon Mr. Seward, with an invitation from 
the governor, who is now at Penang. 

Mr. Young, with a very hurried invitation, gathered around us 
a large and distinguished company of the official people, merchants 
and bankers of Singapore, with whom we have passed the evening 
pleasantly. 

January 12th. — It has been a new experience to sleep in cham- 
bers, with doors and windows opening on a broad veranda, with- 
out the protection of panels or glass. It was an experience equally 
novel, when, stepping on the veranda, at six o'clock, we found 
tables spread with tea, delicate tropical fruits, and ices, while the 
entire family, including ladies and beautiful children, joined us 
there, having already returned from their customary exhilarating 
walks and rides. So it seems that life in the tropics is not with- 
out pleasant and invigorating excitements and exercise. 

/Stoomschejyen Koningin der Nederlanden, January 12th, Even- 
ing. — Having again changed our nationality, we are afloat, this 
time, under the tricolor flag of the Netherlands, carefully regis- 
tered, and bound for the island of Java. Our side-wheel steamer 
is rated at only four hundred and fifty tons, and we think is over- 
rated at that. She is the first steamer which was built on that 
island, and is thirty -four years old. Though not improved by age, 
it must be admitted that she has held her own against time and 
typhoon. Though the smallest craft we have yet sailed in, she 
flourishes a long if not a great name. Heaven save all persons but 
penal convicts from being cramped into such contracted berths, with 
the mercury standing at 99° ! "We indulge this objurgation by 



THE ISLAND OF SUMATRA. 275 

virtue of the traveller's license to find fault. Although the cabins 
are small, they are "as neat as a Birmingham pin ;" and, while the 
hatchways are open, the ventilation is perfect. A table stands in 
the centre of the upper deck, protected by a permanent hurricane 
awning, and remains covered throughout the whole day with equa- 
torial luxuries. But the peculiar institution of the Dutch Steam 
Navigation Company is, another table standing across the beam, 
midships, on which decanters are always kept full of "Kaneel 
Liker," maraschino, absinthe, curacoa, Schiedam schnapps, brandy, 
rum, and we know not what other "appetizers," to which the 
Dutch passengers resort continually, without a suspicion of singu- 
larity, and without expense. The platform of the deck is covered 
with flowers enough to constitute a conservatory, and with baskets 
of various and exquisite fruits, thoughtfully brought on board, and 
arranged for us, by our consul. "When we came on board this 
morning, with many friends, they congratulated us on having " a 
good cloudy day." It was the first time we ever knew " cloudy 
weather " at sea the subject of felicitation. 

"We are already reminded that we have entered on a new 
geographical and political study — that of the Oriental Archipelago. 
"We are running down the northeastern coast of the rich island of 
Sumatra, which is of itself almost large enough to be a continent, 
and which the equator divides, as it divides the whole world, into 
equal parts. Only one-fourth of it, with a population of a million, 
has been subjected to "Western rule, and this is a Dutch colony. 
The other three-fourths, with three millions of people, are states 
ruled by native princes, some of whom are independent, others 
under Dutch protection. Sumatra has a commercial importance 
only inferior in the Archipelago to that of Java. 

Small islands cluster together so closely on our left hand as to 

give us for a channel almost an inland sea, a continuation of the 

straits of Malacca. It is in few places more than ten miles wide, 

and smooth like a river. Its shores are low and wear a rich green 

verdure. "We noticed a profuse shower of rain, at a distance of two 

miles, while the sky beyond it, as well as over our heads, was 

bright and cloudless. Our captain, whose professional career dates 
22 



276 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

from the building of the stoomschepen Koningin der Neclerlanden, 
assures us that, while rain is frequent in all parts of this equatorial 
voyage, it is always raining at the place where that particular 
shower was falling. 

Our crew, drawn from Singapore, is a mixture of the Asiatic sea- 
men of that place of which we have spoken. Those of them who 
come from Western or Southern Asia, wear a light, graceful, and 
picturesque costume, strongly contrasting with the plain and coarse 
dress of the Chinese. They evidently make faithful use of the bath. 
Varying in complexion from tawny to black, they have regular and 
delicate features. They exhibit nothing of that stolid reserve 
which causes the Chinese to be regarded as sullen and contemptu- 
ous. Their different lanoriaffes are based on the ancient Sanscrit. 
Each has an alphabet. Perhaps it is for this reason that they ac- 
quire any European language easily, and speak it with much cor- 
rectness. It will be a curious study for us to inquire how much 
this greater adaptability of the southern and western Asiatic races 
to European intercourse is due to their earlier and more intimate 
acquaintance with foreigners. We are now inclined to think that 
a closer ethnological affinity exists between the European and the 
Hindoo and Malay nations than between the Europeans and the 
Mongolians ; and, again, that there is a closer affinity between the 
Hindoo and the Malay nations than between the Mongolian and 
the Malay. However it may have happened, there is a contrast 
quite as perceptible between the rude and vigorous population of 
Northern China and the gentle and docile natives of Sumatra and 
Malacca, as there was at the time of the discovery of America be- 
tween the fierce tribes of New England and New York and the 
harmless natives of San Salvador and Hispaniola. 

Off the Island of JSanca, January \2>th. Fahrenheit 90°. — 
Rather hot for January, according to our way of thinking. They 
say that latitude affects climate, but we do not see it or feel it. 
Yesterday we left Singapore on the parallel of latitude one degree 
seventeen minutes north. At one o'clock this morning we cross 
the equator, and now we are two degrees south of it. Yet, for any 



A BOA AFLOAT. 277 

consciousness we have, the weather at the three points admits of 
no degrees of comparison. It is hot at Singapore — it is hot under 
the equator — it is just as hot here. Perhaps the maxim " Ne curat 
minimis " applies to the laws of Nature as well as human laws. 

We have always read that life on a Dutch sailing-craft is easy 
and lazy. The Koningin cler Nederlanden does not disprove it. 
While our captain insists that he makes seven and a half knots, our 
measurement on the chart shows that we are really going only six. 
Our passengers, however, are the most active people in the world. 
They show their vigor in two ways — one in changing their dress 
every hour to get cool, the other in taking schnapps every half-hour 
to get hot again. 

Crossing the line, after all, especially at night, is no great affair. 
We felt no concussion, and, as the passengers were all in their 
berths, the customary nautical ceremonies were omitted. 

Charts show us high mountains in the interior on either side. 
Banca seems covered with forests, interrupted here and there by 
cultivation. Sumatra presents a low, sedgy shore, large pieces of 
which, covered with jungle, are continually breaking loose, and 
float about in the forms of pretty green islets on the dark sea. Of 
course, every one desires to haul up to them and see what are the 
plants and flowers which cover them. A Dutch skipper yielded to 
this impulse a short time ago. The captain, alighting on the float- 
ing mass, had just set his foot on a cactus-stump, when a huge boa- 
constrictor reared his glossy head and proclaimed his proprietor- 
ship of the island by violent hisses. The invader retreated, leav- 
ing the " lord of the isle " to navigate his crazy craft as best he 
might. 

Here we are with the Malay Peninsula just behind us, the Spice 
Islands, Sumatra, Banca, Borneo, Java, Celebes, Floris, Timor, 
Booro, Ceram, New Guinea, and a thousand lesser ones all 
around us. We read and " hear tell " of elephants that break 
down telegraph-poles in rubbing their hard hides ; of tigers, lions, 
and leopards, always prowling through the jungle ; of shiny serpents 
in coils like cables ; of monkeys playing their antics in palm-tree 
groves ; of parrots, paroquets, peacocks, and birds-of-paradise, that 



278 THE EASTERN AECHIPELAGO, ETC. 

excel the floral vegetation in brilliancy of colors ; and yet all tliat 
we can see of them is occasionally a captive beast in a menagerie, or 
a stuffed bird in a curiosity-shop at Singapore — a new illustration 
of a discovery heretofore announced, that going round the world is 
not the way to see it. Nevertheless, it is something to learn in the 
near vicinity the topography of these islands, which are the native 
homes of the various tribes of the Malay race ; to learn something 
of the character and condition of that gentle race, whose languid 
energies are now excited to activity and directed by their Dutch 
conquerors. They possess a wealth peculiarly their own — the 
metals, invaluable teak wood, and coffee, with spices, dyes, and 
gums, aromatics, and roots used in art and medicine, brilliant 
feathers and glossy skins of beasts of prey, which taste and luxury 
require in every condition. Even this little island on our left reg- 
ulates, by its production, the market of tin as effectually as the old 
Almaden mines in Spain and the New Almaden mines in Califor- 
nia regulate that of quicksilver throughout the world. Moreover, 
there are, in various parts of these islands, ruins of cities and tem- 
ples, which seem to indicate a primeval civilization, which has 
passed away without leaving either record or tradition. By-and-by, 
commercial intercourse will render research among these antiqui- 
ties practicable, perhaps profitable. Meanwhile, we must be satis- 
fied with an inspection of Java, a design which we shall be able to 
execute if the Koningin der ISTederlanclen shall live to complete 
this, the ten hundred and twentieth of her voyages. 

Despite our resolution, this equatorial travel is working a 
change in our habits. The heat becomes insupportable at ten 
o'clock, and drives us to a siesta. At sunset, a breeze springs up, 
clouds gather, a brilliant display of electricity begins, which is con- 
tinued until midnight, and brings refreshing rains. So the hot day 
having become our night, the cool night becomes our day for exer- 
cise, writing, and conversation. 

January 15th. — We crossed, last night, the entrance of the 
straits of Sunda, the great channel of trade between Europe, China, 
and Japan. Can any one doubt the unity of the human family, 



A MONSOON. 



279 



when he recalls the fact that the civil war which convulsed the 
United States, five years ago, had its painful episodes in this dis- 
tant sea ? We encountered in the passage one of those monsoons 
which render it difficult and dangerous. The storm caused the 
Koningin aforesaid to dance in a manner most undignified and 
unbecoming this grave and " ancient mariner." The ports were 
closed, the cabins grew unendurable, and the deck became the 
common sleeping-room of the passengers. 




SINGAPORE. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CAPITAL OF J A VA. 

The City of Batavia. — The Hytel des Indes. — A New-England Sabbath. — Malay Servants. 
— The King's Plain. — Population of Java. — The Queen of the East. — Departure for 
Buitenzorg. — Manner of Travelling. — The Vice-Regal Piesidence. — The Climate of 
Java. — The Baths of Buitenzorg. 

Batavia, January 16th. — At sunrise we were tossing in the 
open roadstead, four miles from the shore. The monsoon was past, 
though the sea had not subsided. The skies cleared at eight o'clock, 
giving us a view of a long, level, green coast, swelling upward into 
lofty blue mountains. There is much less shipping here than at 
Singapore, but the diversity of flags indicates a not less various 
commerce. The smallest of all steam-tugs was seen bounding over 
the waves and distributing passengers and freights, among steamers 
which are going out to neighboring Dutch ports throughout the 
Archipelago. When she had done this, she rounded up to our 
steamer, and received us on board. On the way, we passed a 
steamship-of-war, freighted with troops, going to repress a native 
rebellion in Borneo. 

A pretty stream, which once stagnated in the jungle, has been 
converted into a broad canal, that now affords navigation from the 
roadstead to the heart of the city of Batavia. The custom-house 
officers took our own statement for our number, ages, occupations, 
luggage, and intentions. Malay drivers, the smallest men we ever 
saw, with the heaviest sort of European barouches, drawn by mini- 



THE STREETS OF BATAVIA. 



2S1 



ature ponies, whirled on a gallop over streets smooth as a race- 
course, bordered by substantial white cottage dwellings, embow- 
ered in groves of pine, palmetto, palm, bamboo, India-rubber, and 
mimosa. These cottages, which might be mistaken for villas, have 
deep marble porticoes or broad verandas, set off with vases of tropi- 
cal flowers, and x make an effective display of small but tasteful gar- 
den statuary. This colonial town, like the cities of the mother- 




STEEET IN BATAVIA. 



country, is traversed by well-built canals. Horse-cars are moving 
swiftly on smooth street-railways. This enterprise, so novel in the 
East, belongs to Mr. Pells, who, though a native of the Netherlands, 
has long been United States banker, trader, and vice-consul. So 
closely does the city assimilate to Holland, that it seems to us we 
have gone quite through the East, and are already in Europe. 

We drove to the Hotel des Indes, the first tavern we have had 



282 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



occasion to seek since we left Salt Lake City, if we except the Chi- 
nese inns on the way from Peking to the Great "Wall. This hotel 
is a building of one story, surrounding a circular court, with a 
higher central edifice, which contains the prop3r offices, drawing- 
rooms, and saloons, a veranda surrounding the whole. The outer 
buildings, occupied as private apartments, are connected by corri- 
dors with the centre building. In a scrupulously neat bathing- 
house attached to our apartment, we enjoyed, for the first time, the 
full luxury of an Oriental bath, for the bath has not yet been suc- 
cessfully introduced into the European settlements in Japan and 
China. This bath consists of a marble basin fifteen feet in diame- 
ter, the water exactly the temperature of the air, clear, and deep 
enough for swimming. 

It being Sunday, we composed ourselves early for the enjoy- 




MARKIED WOMAN OP JAVA. 



ment of a New-England Sabbath, a day of absolute rest. But this 
was not to be. A host of native street-pedlers had followed us to 



MALAY SERVANTS. 283 

the hotel. They sat down and chattered on the veranda, they 
crowded into our parlor, " singly, by pairs, and by the dozen," and, 
in spite of repulse and remonstrance, forced upon us a display of 
their cheap but ostentatious wares. For the first time, we have 
maintained a resolution against the itinerant merchant, yielding 
only in the case of a blind trader. Even he left us, at last, weary 
with our delay in finding the guilders required for the purchase. 
But we called him back and bought a pair of green-velvet gold- 
embroidered slippers. Breakfast at twelve. Its excellence, con- 
trasting with that of breakfasts at home, was that nothing on the 
table was hot. On what principle is it that Europeans in the East 
smother the delicate flavor of rice in thirty or forty piquant con- 
diments \ All the servants are Malays. They are meek and un- 
obtrusive, but not servile ; willing and diligent, but not quick. 
Tidy and even tasteful in dress, they make an attractive costume 
with a guilder's worth of printed muslin. 

The Malay is, on an average, two inches shorter than the Euro- 
peans or Mongolian, with scarcely any beard, and the sexes are un- 
distinguishable by their dress. 

Mr. Pells, advised, from Singapore, of our coming, came at one 
o'clock and immediately removed us to his pleasant villa on the 
"King's Plain," which is the Hyde Park of Batavia, a shaded lawn, 
four miles long, and half a mile wide. Primitive national habits, 
however, are not relinquished here. The " King's Plain" is the 
common pasturage of the milch-cows of the city. An artist would 
find a pretty study in this quiet scene, in which the animals, crop- 
ping the rich grass, seem scarcely more at leisure than their Malay 
attendants, sitting under the trees, in picturesque attitude and cos- 
tume. 

In going to our new residence, we stopped to hear the " King's 
Band," and lingered there until sunset witnessing the evening 
promenade of the whole European population, which, including 
military and naval officers, numbers six thousand. There was a 
grotesque display of carriages and liveries of fashions now obso- 
lete in Europe. Gentlemen as well as ladies and children disdain 
to cover their heads after sunset, while all " sorts and conditions of 



284 



THE EASTERN" AECHIPELAGO, ETC. 



men" wear white gloves, and all have the staid and gentle Dutch 
manner. Will our friends consult the tables of population ? We 
think the island of Java is the most densely-populated country in 




A JAVANESE CIKL. 



the world. There are fourteen millions of people within an area 
of forty-five thousand square miles. The city of Bataria, with a 
diameter of eight miles, contains one hundred and fifty thousand 
inhabitants — more than half of these are Chinese. The residue, 
with the exception of the few Europeans, is divided nearly equally 
between the two native Malay races, Javanese and Sundese. All 
the Malays are Mohammedans. The Chinese retain their native 
heathenism. The Europeans, of course, are Christians, but free 
from religious zeal or fervor. 

Batavia challenges the title of " Queen of the East." Certainly 
it presents a delightful contrast to the towns of Japan and China, 
while its profusion of equatorial shade-trees and flowers makes it 
far more pleasing than any place we have at home. The settlement 
of New York, by the Dutch, and that of Java were contempora- 



VISIT TO BUITENZORG. 285 

neous. Each was surrounded by aboriginal tribes — those around 
New York sparse, those around Batavia populous. The aboriginal 
races around New York have virtually disappeared, and are re- 
placed by millions of European derivation ; the aboriginal races 
around Batavia, on the other hand, remain in even greater force 
than at the time of the conquest, while the European population is 
only twenty-seven thousand. Again, neither the Netherlands nor 
any European state has kept a foothold within the vast territory 
now covered by the United States ; while the Dutch not only re- 
tain their first dominion in Java, but have extended it over the 
whole island and a large portion of the Archipelago. What a con- 
trast there has been in the processes of civilization which have pro- 
duced results so widely different in the two hemispheres ! 

The Governor, or, as he is called, the "Kesidente" of Batavia, 
visited Mr. Seward to-day, and tendered us the hospitalities of the 
province. The Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies resides 
at Buitenzorg, thirty-six miles distant, and has invited us to be his 
guests there. The intense heat to-day has not only overpowered 
us, but seems to have overpowered the whole population of Batavia. 
Our morning rest was protracted until evening, and then deluging 
rains made us prisoners. 

Buitenzorg, January 18th. — We yesterday appointed six for 
our hour of departure. It was our own fault, or rather that of our 
luggage, and not the fault of the post-office, that we were delayed 
until half-past seven. The admiration of Batavia, which we ex- 
pressed yesterday, was somewhat modified as we came through 
the city and suburbs this morning. We were, at first, unable to 
decide by what name we should call the dwellings of Europeans, 
whether bungalows, cottages, or villas. We now found them, each 
with its beautiful grove, so exactly like to every other, that, un- 
aided, we shall be quite unable, on our return to the city, to find 
Mr. Pell's residence, or the street on which it stands. To tell 
the truth, moreover, the right line in geometry is not the line of 
beauty, nor is the parallelogram, although a very convenient figure 
for many uses, especially adapted to landscape-gardening. Nor 



286 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



was it altogether gratifying to find the " King's Plain " sonking 
and miry, much more suitable for a dairy-meadow than a park. 
These strictures, however, we now think hypercritical ; we must 
still pronounce Batavia the most attractive city we have ever seen. 
The road to Buitenzorg is well graded, perfectly macadamized, 
and, what is better, completely bordered and shaded on either side 







SCENE IN JAVA. 



by high, thick hedges of heliotrope, cactus, and creepers, all in 
bloom. Over these hedges, the light bamboo lines the avenue, 
opening only to reveal the native cottages, peeping from under 
palm-groves. All the people we see, whether about their humble 
dwellings, or moving on the high-road, seem busy, contented, and 
happy. Only two beggars approached us on the way, and these 
timidly ; both were blind. 



A FASCINATING RESIDENCE. 287 

The manner of travel here is on the postal system, which was 
never known in America, and is now superseded by railroads in 
Europe. We have Mr. Pell's stately old coach, which has seats for 
six passengers inside, and ample room for four servants outside. 
We carry no trunks, our w r arclrobes being stored in the capacious 
boxes under the seats. Four horses draw us over the level plain ; 
more are added in climbing hills. The driver has two assistants or 
runners (lopers), who, by constantly applying their lashes, keep the 
ponies up to running-speed. They are whisked off and replaced at 
stages of seven miles. We made the journey in three hours. At 
each stage, the traveller pays four cents to each loper, and ten or 
twenty cents to the driver. 

If Batavia is fascinating, this suburban viceregal residence is 
supremely so. The palace stands at the south side of the native 
city. The approach is through a park, covered with a greener and 
smoother sward, we imagine, than even England or Holland can 
exhibit. Five hundred deer are seen reclining or feeding under the 
lofty shade-trees. The palace is said to be on the model of Blen- 
heim — however this may be, we recognize the plan of our own Cap- 
itol at Washington. Like every thing else in this favorite Dutch 
colony, it happily combines good taste with elegance and comfort. 
The governor-general has received us very kindly, although not 
without something of the stiffness of official ceremony. The ladies 
seem to regard us as an accession, not unwelcome, to a society cir- 
cumscribed and somewhat monotonous. 

The Dutch East Indies are ruled absolutely by directions from 
the Hague. Practically, the governor-general is viceroy. At the 
time of the conquest, two native sovereigns, with the pompous 
titles of sultan and emperor, divided the island between them, one 
of the territories being known as Java, the other as Sunda. The 
descendants of each of these sovereigns being subsidized, though 
really divested of power, retain certain contracted domains, with 
titular rank, in subordination to the authority of the Dutch Govern- 
ment. Several other native kings, subsidized in the same way, 
have a somewhat similar domain and tenure. With these qualifica- 
tions, the executive government is administered by the governor- 



288 



THE EASTERN AECHIPELAGO, ETC. 



general, with the aid of an executive council appointed by the 
Home government. 

The Dutch, not without severe and frequent contests with the 
natives, have held sway here since the year 1610, with only an 
interval of from 1811 to 1816, when among the events of the 
Napoleonic war in Europe, Holland having passed under the con- 
trol of France, Java was seized and held for five years by Great 
Britain. 

January 19th. — Shall we note the climatic features of Java ? 
It has no spring and no autumn — only summer and winter. It 




LILT POND, PALACE GKOtTNDS, JAVA. 



THE BOTANICAL GARDENS. 289 

rains all summer, and is comparatively dry during the harvest- 
time in winter. The present season is the summer. It rained so 
constantly yesterday that we could not enter a carriage, or step 
on the ground. This morning, Governor-General Myer, with the 
ladies, gave us a drive in the botanical gardens attached to the 
palace. All the world knows that they are scientifically planted, 
but why give them a technical name % They are of princely di- 
mensions, and are inconceivably magnificent, for they contain, or 
are understood to contain, every attainable tropical tree, plant, or 
flower. Of the palm alone there are a hundred species. Dense 
groves of tree-ferns are interlaced with myriads of orchids, cov- 
ered with what one might well imagine to be the very flowers of 
paradise, and we were at a loss to . say which form of life in the 
tropics, the vegetable or the animal, excels in color. Man's hand 
has planted and trained the trees and flowers, but the gorgeous 
troops of birds which inhabit them are voluntary residents there, 
making the shade "vocal with their music." These groves are 
interspersed with lakes, whose waters murmur under the per- 
fumed pressure of the crimson lily and the sacred lotus. These 
lakes are the homes of some varieties of tropical birds ; swans, 
black and white, are domesticated in them ; and the cockatoo, 
with his creamy plumage, seems unconscious of imprisonment in 
his spacious gilded cage, so constructed as to afford him ample 
sunshine and cool bath. 

Alighting from our carriages, we took a path which leads 
through a bamboo-grove so dense that the down which its delicate 
leaves cast on the smooth gravel takes the form of a tender moss. 
This moss, taking root, interweaves so closely that it is not de- 
ranged by the footstep. The very air of this fairy grove seemed 
to us to hold a soothing verdure. But it is not alone in the lakes, 
groves, and lawns, that the feathered race contents itself at Buiten- 
zorg : 

" This guest of summer, 
The temple-haunting martlet does approve 
By his loved masonry, that heaven's breath 
Smiles sweet and wooingly here." 
23 



290 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



At sunset, thousands of martins gather for the night under the 
eaves of the palace. Sitting closely to each other, they are mistaken 
by a careless observer for a blackened bead, which extends without 
break around the cornice of the entire edifice. Perhaps we dilate 




TKOPICAL FOLIAGE, JAVA. 



too much on tropical jSTature, but its first effect upon all minds is 
to excite a wish never to leave it. We almost contracted for at 
least an occasional home at Nagasaki. We left Hono;-Kong and 
Singapore reluctantly ; but Batavia, and more than all Buitenzorg, 
wins our thoughts irresistibly away from all that is practical in life, 
to delight in repose and serene contemplation. 

The truth, however, is, that the admiration of tropical scenery, 
though universal, wears off as suddenly as it comes. We have not 



JAVANESE FRUIT. 



291 



thus far found an American or European content with a genial 
clime. The merchant, mariner, or missionary, even the women 
and children, stay here against their wills, and wait impatiently for 
their release this month or the next, or, at farthest, this year or the 
next. 

If we should forget every thing else at Buitenzorg, we are not 
likely to forget its baths. Leaving the palace-door, and driving 
through a winding, palm-shaded lane, we came to the bamboo- 
grove. Dismissing carriage and attendants there, we penetrated 




JAVAXESE FRUIT. 



to its dark centre, by a tangled foot-path. There we found a 
marble basin, eighty feet across, filled with flowing water. The 
depth is regulated at will, and a slight bamboo rail is stretched 



292 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



across the basin for security against accident. -Tall palm-trees pro- 
tect the bather from the sun, while the surrounding grove is an 
impenetrable screen. Coming out of the bath, we picked up what 
we thought to be a green walnut. On removing the hard, acrid 
shell, pungent scarlet mace betrayed itself; breaking through this, 
and the inner shell, which it covered, a fragrant, white, milky pulp 
disclosed the incipient nutmeg. 




SCEtfE IN JAVA. 



CHAPTER III. 

EXCURSION INTO THE INTERIOR. 

A Balking Horse. — Cultivation of Rice. — Tropical Flowers. — Surabaya. — The Regent Pra- 
wiro. — Dutch Colonization. — How Java is governed. — Bandong. — The Regent and 
the Interpreter. — A Gouty Monarch. — The Regent's Income. — How he spends it. 

Surabaya. January 21 si. — The governor-general and his esti- 
mable family dismissed ns, after a very early breakfast, on an ex- 
cursion which is affording us an opportunity to see something of the 
mountains, and more of the simple people of this beautiful island. 

Still travelling in Mr. Pell's spacious coach, with government 
orders for relays, we drove rapidly through the quaint and quiet 
streets of the pretty little city of Buitenzorg. So long as we kept 
the plain, we had only one annoyance — a balking horse — one of 
eight. Peasantry, at every halt, assisted the lopers in rolling the 
heavy carriage against the refactory animal's heels, and so, whether 
he willed to go or not, we got on. Crossing a small stream, we 
climbed irregular volcanic mountains, and came through a gorge 
between two of them ; the one seven thousand feet high, the other 
four thousand. The mountain-sides are terraced with rice-fields, 
one above the other. These fields were covered with standing 
water. The successive terraces show the crop at every stage of its 
growth. On the upper terrace, the young plant is seen, resembling 
grass just sprouted from the seed ; on the level just below, single 
stalks of rice just transplanted ; below this, fields of the grain at 
successive periods of its growth ; until, at the foot of the mountain, 



294 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

it is already ripened, and ready for the knife. We say the hvife, 
for neither cradle, nor scythe, nor sickle, is used in the rice-fields 
in Java. The Koran commands the husbandman to cut off each 
individual stalk singly. This injunction the pious Moslem never 
disobeys. 

Rice-cultivation is a very laborious process. A prairie farmer, 
we think, would despair, if he were obliged to transplant his wheat- 
crop from its first bed, plant by plant; he would die, if it were 
necessary to water it, even once during its growth. It would be 
left to rot in the field if he were denied a " reaper," or at least a 
cradle or sickle ; it would waste in the barn or stack if he could not 
procure a threshing-machine or a fanning-mill. On the other hand, 
here each blade of rice is removed to a new bed, and from its plant- 
ing until its ripening it is irrigated once every day. When it is 
gathered, the kernels are separated from the husk by hand. Not- 
withstanding this vast labor, rice is the chief production, as it is the 
chief food of all the Asiatic races, constituting half the population 
of the globe. The cause of the productiveness of Java (greater 
than that of any portion of the earth) readily discloses itself to the 
most careless observer as he passes through the country. It is a 
combination of equatorial heat, volcanic soil, and perennial moun- 
tain-streams. These rivulets are subdivided at their springs, and 
conducted around and down the winding terraces to the base of the 
mountain, where they are in like manner gathered and poured in 
sparkling cascades down the steep declivity ; then to be again sub- 
divided, and made to perform the same gentle service as before to 
successive terraces below. 

We know well enough the slow progress of science and art at 
home, but who taught this Malay peasantry this skill in hydraulics, 
which surpasses that of any civilized people \ 

We are now seeing that we might have spared ourselves the 
trouble of threading the walks of the botanical gardens at Bui- 
tenzorg. All around us, every way we turn, whichever way we 
look, are innumerable species of palm, the great banyan, exquisite 
tree-ferns thirty or forty feet high, sparkling with parasitic flowers ; 
fragrant hedges of heliotrope fifteen feet high, now in full bloom — 



AN EQUATORIAL PHENOMENON. 295 

not monotonous blue as with us, but of every color and hue — alter- 
nating with other hedges of the grotesque cactus of a hundred 
shapes and equally splendid in bloom. Every one is familiar with 
the lily of the valley, but we find here the lily of the mountain, a 
stately flower giving out even a sweeter odor than its little name- 
sake. Mountains shine with white lilies, and lakes with the incom- 
parable lotus. Although coffee-plantations spread a broad, dark 
shadow behind flowery hedges, yet the bright green rice-fields are 
never out of the landscape. "Where these allow space, there aie 
meadows gay with azaleas of infinite variety, set in borders of pink 
and white and crimson oleanders, which attain here the stature of 
the magnolia. 

We have found rest and refreshment at the village of Surabaya, 
a pleasant resort in a mountain amphitheatre, for the dwellers on 
the sea-coast. The clearing up of a rain-storm has just given us, 
instead of the rainbow, an equatorial phenomenon — a broad, pris- 
matic column, stretching from the centre of the heavens, quite 
down the mountain-side, resting on the plain below and flooding 
the valley with a gorgeous light. 

The table d'hote does not differ, either in pretension, costliness, 
or meagreness, from like service at Catskill or other mountain 
resorts in our own country. 

Sjiandjioer, January 21st. — We left our balky horse at Sura- 
baya. A brake, with an iron shoe, was fixed on a hind- wheel. Not- 
withstanding these checks, we were rolling rapidly down into the 
next valley, when the alarm sounded that a wheel was on fire. It 
was extinguished, and we were thundering forward with greater 
velocity than before, when we had another fright — the chain of the 
shoe broke. A rope of buffalo hide was substituted for it, and we 
had scarcely taken the road again, when the shoe itself gave way. 
But, with careful driving, and our lopers holding us back, we 
escaped harm. So at six o'clock we entered this very pretty vil- 
lage, which, although a native one, is laid out in streets and squares, 
with that degree of geometrical precision, and ornamented with 
that peculiar taste, which is everywhere so observable in the Neth- 



296 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



erlands. The governor-general having dispatched notice of our 
coming, and also sent with us his young kinsman Mr. Lowe, Ave 
were met outside of the town by a native subaltern officer, in Dutch 
uniform, and conducted to the palace in the centre of a park larger 
than the Capitol-grounds at Washington. Here, under a tasteful 
porte-cochere, we were received by the Regent Prawiro da Kedya. 
He is a lineal descendant of the long-since dethroned Kings of Pad- 
jadjura in the western empire of Java, and bears the titular hon- 




THi: RECENT PKAWll'.ct DA KEDYA. 



ors of Padhe Sonnengoniz. The regent is thirty years old, digni- 
fied and handsome, and has pleasing manners. A Mohammedan, 
he wears a turban of orange and black muslin, a tight black-cloth 
jacket, with large gold buttons, and a standing collar, on which 
sparkle three enormous diamonds, and with the whitest of linen 
at neck and wrist. A sarong of gay-colored muslin, painted with 
figures emblematic of his rank, hangs from his waist over black 
trousers. White stockings and gold-embroidered velvet shoes com- 



DUTCH COLONIZATION. 297 

plete his dress. He wears at his side a short sword, with scabbard 
of gold, and hilt profusely covered with diamonds. 

Owing to the humidity of the climate, a customary law of land- 
scape gardening is so far reversed that the area which immediately 
surrounds the palace, although ornamented with trees, is paved 
with gravel instead of being a green lawn. The palace, one story 
in height, is equal in its dimensions to the White House. The 
model and style of the buildings are perfect, but the materials are 
fragile, and the construction unsubstantial and cheap. There is a 
ludicrous contrast between the vaulted ceiling resting on a double 
row of graceful columns, and the rough, uneven bamboo floor so 
light that the whole house trembles under every footstep. The fur- 
niture, entirely European, plain and ill selected, must have been 
supplied by some second-hand dealer in Amsterdam. Our princely 
host showed us our several apartments. The dinner at which he 
presided had the substantial character of a European feast with 
the addition of the curry, fruits, and sweets, of the island. After 
leaving the table we were serenaded by a band of native musicians. 
Their music is derived from Hindostan. The instruments are 
reeds, bells, and a sort of violin. The tones are soft and monoto- 
nous, and free from discord, with a barely perceptible melody. Too 
weary to sit through the protracted entertainment, we retired to 
rest, with the strains still falling on our ears like the rustling of a 
gentle wind through the tree-tops. 

Sjiandjioer, January 22d. — Dutch colonization has a story as 
simple as its results are wonderful. The Netherlands Government 
seventy or eighty years ago acquired the Dutch East India Com- 
pany's titles to its possessions in the East, and .substituted itself 
in the place of that great mercantile establishment. Using the 
national force as occasion required to perfect and maintain acqui- 
sitions, they brought the whole of Java under their political rule. 
Having done this, the Government appropriated absolutely to the 
crown whatever lands were unoccupied. They compounded with 
the two native sovereigns before mentioned and their vassal lungs 
for the management of the estates which were under cultivation, 



29S THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

and the disposal of their products. After this, they gradually 
extinguished by purchase the rights of the native proprietors, and 
so have been continually enlarging the royal domain. By way of 
commending their rule to the natives, they have left to the fam- 
ilies of the dispossessed rulers not only a titular rank, but they 
have employed their chiefs in the management of their several 
estates, allowing to each the official honor of regent, and actually 
associating him with the Dutch residente or governor. The resi- 
dente exercises the real power, but ostensibly in the name and 
under the authority of the native prince. The latter receives an 
ample stipend, which enables him to maintain a show of his 
hereditary dignity, and in consideration of which he entertains 
all the Government agents and their visitors at his palace. The 
Dutch residente directs through the native regent what seed shall 
be sown on every plantation, how and when the harvest shall be 
gathered, what wages shall be paid to the cultivators, and disposes 
of the products at prices fixed in every case, by the Governor- 
General and Council of the Indies. The results of this system 
are, that, while the people seem to be comfortable and contented, 
it defrays all the expenses of local administration in peace and 
war, and pays an annual revenue of five million dollars into the 
national treasury at the Hague. Java, thus governed, remains 
what the discoverers found it, " the garden of the world." 

Bandong, January %3d. — Our host at Sjiandjioer gave us at an 
early hour a cup of the native coffee, with native sugar, and put 
us on the way in good time this morning — first, to survey more 
leisurely than yesterday the little provincial capital ; and then to 
continue our upward way to the centre of the island. The moun- 
tain-sides which we climbed are more abrupt than those we trav- 
elled on the previous day, while the teeming population seems, if 
possible, more simple and gentle. Many sorts of palm and cactus 
disappear, but the heliotrope is richer than ever, the tree-ferns 
taller and more beautiful. We had the various experiences of 
mountain-travel — travel with six horses, with oxen, and with mixed 
teams of horses and oxen ; sometimes we were pushed upward, 



THE REGENT OF BANDONG. 299 

sometimes held back with human hands alone ; sometimes moved 
by the working of the endless chain. We completed the journey 
at five o'clock this afternoon. 

This town is built on the same model as the one last visited. 
Hardly had we entered it before we encountered demonstrative 
evidence that the native prince, Wiranarta Kalsoema Radhe Ade- 
pathe, Regent of Bandong, is every inch a king. His despotic 
authority is reflected in the despondent countenances and de- 
meanor of his subjects. Within his dominion we were recognized 
as his guests. No traveller on the road, whether young or old, 
whether a man staggering under a heavy burden, or a woman with 
a child in her arms, passed us without first receiving our permission, 
no matter how slowly we might be moving, or how long we might 
be stopping. All whom we met went down on their knees as 
we approached, nor did they venture to leave that posture or 
even lift their eyes from the ground until we had passed by. 
This was a strange sight among a people who are more sen- 
sitive than any other on points of personal dignity. Every official 
or educated Javanese wears a sword, not so much to protect him- 
self against the beasts of the jungle, as to use it in vindication 
of wounded self-esteem. He is a duellist. So excitable is the na- 
tional sense of honor, that no words of insult or opprobrium are 
ever heard among them without provoking instant chastisement. 
Killing in the duel is not accounted murder. 

Radhe Aclepathe, attended by a half-caste interpreter, stood 
waiting to receive us before the palace-door, under a gilded um- 
brella, of form and dimensions not unlike the " sounding-board " 
of old-fashioned New-England churches. The interpreter inquired 
in French whether the guests were Mr. Seward and family. Being 
answered, he presented each of us to the regent, who, with a step 
of conscious majesty, conducted Mr. Seward and the ladies individ- 
ually under the gorgeous umbrella, through the portico and into 
the grand reception-hall of the palace. He seemed seventy years 
old, and was carelessly dressed. His countenance indicated great 
shrewdness, his voice and manner were studiously deferential. He 
displayed, however, a disagreeable impatience and even petulance. 



300 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

lie devolved on the interpreter the duty of showing us our apart- 
ments. We thought his expressions of politeness sinister, and con- 
ceived at once a strong dislike for him. The overawed interpreter 
blundered, and conducted each guest to an apartment designed for 
the other. The regent, discovering the mistake, rose to the frenzy 
of a " Blue Beard." He hobbled after us and corrected the blun- 
der with vehement objurgations. We did not understand a word 
of the reproof, but we all take notice that the unlucky Malay who 
thus combined the offices of interpreter and chamberlain, in the 
" royal " household, has not appeared since. 

At seven o'clock we were summoned to the great hall, where the 
recent received us. What a transformation ! He was now attired 
in royal Javanese costume, far more elaborate than that of the Pra- 
wiro da Kedya. His countenance was serene, his manner gentle, 
his discourse easy and courteous. He seemed twenty years younger. 
He banished our dislike at once, by telling us, with a humorous 
grimace, which none, but those who have actually, known what the 
twinges of the gout are, can affect, that he is a chronic sufferer from 
that malady. When our host was seated in the centre of the room, 
three male dwarfs, neatly dressed in native scarlet livery, with tur- 
baned heads and naked feet, timidly entered and crouched on the 
floor behind their master. One held a sword and folded umbrella, 
another, a box tilled with smoking-tobacco, pipes, and cigars ; the 
third, a brazier of charcoal. The three mutely and unceasingly 
studied the varying expressions of the regent's face. A Malay 
served first schnapps, then port-wine and madeira. Dwarf num- 
ber two now offered pipes, cigars, and cigarettes ; thereupon the 
regent ejaculated " Appee," when the brazier-bearing pigmy sprang 
quickly forward. In obeying a command, each- dwarf, as he ap- 
proached master or guest, dropped on his knees and bowed his fore- 
head to the floor, then assuming a natural position, made the ser- 
vice required. When it was completed he performed a " salam," 
and crept backward to his place behind the regent. Not only 
these dwarfs, but each servant in the palace, the regent's own son 
and heir, a youth of twenty-one, and every native admitted to the 
presence, practises the same servile obeisance. The chief, on his 



THE REGENT'S INCOME. 



301 



part, does not deign to incline his head toward the servant, child, 
or subject, to whom he speaks, but, on the contrary, affectedly 
looks away from or beyond him. 

The palace, the grounds, and the town dependent on it, are 
much more spacious than those at Sjiandjioer, and abound with 
evidences of the regent's wealth. His annual stipend is one hun- 
dred and sixty thousand guilders, about eighty thousand dollars. 
At first it puzzled us to know how a barbarian can use such an in- 
come, but we were not long in finding a solution. In part, it is 
laid out in gems and jewels for personal ostentation, in part for the 
support of his family, in part for maintaining his corps of " baya- 
deres " (ballet and singing girls), and a band of musicians, in part 
in keeping up the most costly stud on the island, and the residue 
in support of a large number of relations and dependants. The 
crescent dominates everywhere in Java, and doubtless the mosque 
draws heavily on the princely revenues. 

After an elaborate dinner, the day has ended, as at Sjiandjioer, 
with a native serenade. 




A HOSTELRY IN JAVA. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MR. SEWARD AT BAND ON G. 

Excursion to the Cascade. — A Perilous Road. — The Water-Fall. — An Evening at the 
Palace. — The Bayaderes. — Two Dwarfs. — A Chorus of Peasants. — The Little Prin- 
cesses. — An Excursion to Tankoeban. — Peruvian Bark. — The Top of the Volcano. 
— An Enchanting Scene. — The Javanese Prince. 

Bandong, January 23d. — It rained all night. Bad as we knew 
the roads must be, the regent nevertheless ordered out his immense 
European carriage, with six horses, for an excursion to the " Cas- 
cade," which is one of the wonders of the island. We were attended 
by a detachment of heavy dragoons in Dutch uniforms, barefooted 
postilions, and turbaned footmen. At the foot of every hill, and 
at every slough, a crowd of peasants appeared, as if summoned by 
previous command, to drag or push our unwilling wheels. It was 
like a royal progress, sach as Queen Elizabeth used to make in the 
sixteenth century. 

Twelve miles from the town, we found twenty -five saddle- 
horses, a complement of sedan-chairs, and fifty peasants, awaiting 
us. Taking so many of these animals, vehicles, and men, as we had 
need of, we descended successive hills terraced with pale-green rice- 
fields, and glossy dark coffee-groves. The mounted members of 
the party agree that, in all their experience, they never had so per- 
ilous an exercise ; but the horses, as well as the bearers of the 
chairs, were well trained and sure of foot. Although an animal 
occasionally stumbled, and a chair-bearer lost his balance, we never- 



A WATER-FALL. 303 

theless accomplished the journey down the slippery precipices with- 
out serious accident. 

The river Groote forms the canal which we have described at 
Batavia. That river here bears the euphonious name of Tjoerock 
Tjikapoendoeng. The torrents by which it is formed meet in the 
gorges above this place, and it makes a perpendicular leap of sev- 
enty feet into a dell, the sides of which are studded with lofty tree- 
ferns festooned with orchids. The cascade in form and movement 
has a parallel in some of the many leaps of the West Canada Creek 
at Trenton, but its forest surroundings can have their like nowhere 
but within the tropics. After the first pleasing impression of the 
scene was over, we compared notes together, saying how absurd it 
must seem that we, who live almost in sound of Niagara, should 
have come this long distance to see a petty water-fall under the 
equator. Soon, however, we were made to understand that, for 
those to whom our cataract of thunder is unknown, this shining 
cascade is worthy of all admiration. The imagination of the na- 
tives has peopled the dell with gentle fairies of the air, and loving 
water-sprites. The Dutch gentleman who accompanied us had 
never seen any water-falls but the waste-weirs of the canals in 
Holland. He was awe-stricken in the presence of Tjoerock Tjika- 
poendoeng. While to us the combination of sparkling water, 
dainty ferns, and breathing flowers was simply beautiful, it was 
for him sublime. So it is that accident or circumstance often 
determines our tastes and sentiments. 

This evening the regent conducted us to the private palace in 
which his family reside. Apologizing for his wife's absence by 
reason of indisposition, he placed us in the centre of a spacious and 
lofty hall, softly lighted with tinted globe lamps, and graced with a 
curious medley of portraits of European celebrities — among them 
the Prince of Wales, the Queen of the Netherlands, Jenny Lind, 
and Lola Montez. We were the only guests. A band of twenty- 
five native musicians was stationed on the porch. Hundreds of 
the peasantry of Bandong crowded the guard in front. The musi- 
cians played, in a low tone, a recitative accompaniment. Soon after 

this began, four " bayaderes," one after the other, glided into the 
24 



304: 



THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



room, with a movement in harmony with the music. They were 
apparently eighteen years of age, and had that " golden " complex- 
ion which in the East is the highest type of beauty. The regent 
explained that the " bayadere " amusement was derived from the 
ancient Hindoos. The costume of the performers has the same 
origin. It consists of a long, scant scarlet skirt, fastened above the 
waist, and falling in folds quite over the bare feet. A stiffened 
band of scarlet and gold, ten inches wide, is drawn tightly about 
the waist, fitting just under the shoulder-blades, leaving the arms 
and shoulders entirely bare. The monture was a burnished helmet. 
"Wondering at this barbaric magnificence, Mr. Seward asked the 




DANCING-COSTUME. 



regent whether the helmet was gilded. He quickly answered in 
Javanese, that not only the helmet, but also the heavy girdle, the 
bracelets, and anklets, were of solid gold, and added in English, 
" California." Three ballets were performed ; it was not difficult 



A JAVANESE TOM THUMB. 



305 



to understand the spirit of each. The first, gay and joyous, repre- 
sented a nuptial ceremony ; the second, energetic and vigorous, a 
battle, with ambuscade, surprise, struggle, and victory ; the third, 




DANCING-GIRL. 



deep-toned and measured, a funeral pageant. The dancing con- 
sisted of slow and varied posturing and extravagant gesticulation, 
to the broken and imperfect time of the wild music. The "baya- 
deres " were not the only performers of the evening. There were 
two dwarfs, the eldest thirty years old, well proportioned and agile, 
and a counterpart of Tom Thumb. In the other, the peculiar 
Malay figure and features were exaggerated to absolute deformity. 
The regent took especial delight in this lusus naturae, and laughed 
immoderately at the little creature's big head and bandy legs. We, 
who at home are more pained than pleased by the exhibitions of 
General Tom Thumb and his Liliputian wife, could not sympathize 
here with the barbarian prince. It was with difficulty that we sup- 
pressed our disgust when the pitiable dwarfs were put forward as 



306 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

harlequins in the historical pantomimes which the " bayaderes " 
were executing. 

Dwarfs here remain the same important personages they were 
in European courts three hundred years ago. We ought to 
have mentioned that the Radhe Adepathe maintains seven of 
them. 

The performance of the night had a very pleasing interlude. 
While the artistes were resting in the intervals, the guard at the 
door opened the way to a chorus of peasants. They executed a 
grotesque dance, which gave unbounded delight, not only to our- 
selves, but to the unbidden native spectators outside. In the midst 
of this diversion, two children of the regent, girls of four and five, 
and very small, came in with their attendants, dressed in queenly 
satin robes and jewels. He presented them to us with manifest 
pride, and, although they trembled during the ceremony, they per- 
formed their little parts with all the formality of women. 

We saw the " bayadere " in Japan, and have now seen her in 
Java. She is, as we understand, a universal character in the East. 
Before the innovations of Buddha, the Bramins were an exclu- 
sive religious class in India. They constituted a priesthood, like 
the family of Aaron among the Jews. Descended from the gods, 
their persons were sacred. By a cunning artifice, they reconciled 
their followers to the consecration of women to their service. 
These women were selected at an early age from the highest fami- 
lies, reared and educated in the temples in the feminine arts and 
accomplishments, as well as in mysteries of religion. Such were 
originally the " bayaderes." If Madame Roland, in view of the 
agonies of the state of France, exclaimed, " O Liberty, what 
crimes are committed in thy name ! " how much more might we 
exclaim, in view of this wicked imposture, what crime has not 
superstition perpetrated against the virtue of the human race! 
While, as we are told, the institution among the Hindoos retains 
its religious character, it has been copied without that character 
throughout the East, whatever forms of religion may prevail. A 
troupe of bayaderes is considered a necessary ornament in the 
court of every prince, and in all rich families. They are allowed 



THE VOLCANO OF TANKOEBAN. 307 

the education and accomplishments which are denied the sex gen- 
erally, without being held to the practice of virtue. 

January 24:th. — An excursion to-day with the same cortege 
and retinue as yesterday, to the smouldering volcano of Tankoe- 
ban. What -a transformation in the person of the young prince ! 
Hitherto we had seen him barefooted, and in a mean sarong, kneel- 
ing and lying at his father's feet like a slave. To-day he has donned 
a manly and even princely costume. Booted and spurred, he 
mounted a spirited horse, and led our expedition. 

Leaving our carriages in a pretty village, at the foot of the 
mountain, and taking saddle-horses and chairs, we made the ascent 
in five hours, by an excavated zigzag path, the construction of 
which would have been impossible for any engineer other than a 
Javanese practised in the science of mountain-irrigation. At the 
beginning of the ascent, we were at the elevation which the coffee- 
tree most affects. The orchards are very luxuriant ; rising a hun- 
dred feet higher, we came to a plain covered with the Cinchona 
calisaya, as the tree is called, which furnishes the medicine known 
world-wide as the Peruvian bark, in its various forms. The culture 
has been introduced here, quite recently, from Bolivia. The trees 
are yet young, and we are unable to determine their ultimate size. 
The Resident informs us that the enterprise has already proved a 
success. He has shipped more than seven tons of the bark to Hol- 
land, taken from only the smaller branches or twigs of the trees. 
The next plateau gave us a view of the sugar cultivation ; a still 
higher one yields cabbages, potatoes, and other esculents for the 
supply of the markets on the sea-shore. Native timber grows 
upon the mountain-sides to the very summit, five thousand feet 
above the sea. The forests are chiefly of teak ; the undergrowth, 
tree-ferns, with a great variety of flowering and fruit-bearing 
vines. "We recognize the raspberry, although not belonging to 
any species cultivated with us. Troops of peasantry went before 
us and prepared the way by cutting steps on the most rugged 
declivities. 

"We reached, at last, a plain covered with fire-blasted trees ; sul- 



308 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

pliurous fumes impregnated the atmosphere, and a clammy moist- 
ure chilled us through and through. Following a circuitous path 
through this desolate scene, we reached the brink of the double cra- 
ter, four or five miles in circumference and one thousand feet deep. 
There have been two eruptions in such close proximity that only a 
low ridge or promontory separates the craters. At the bottom of 
either crater, there is a dark, yellow lake — or, rather, there is one 
lake extending over the bottoms of both — divided by a natural 
bridge. On the north shore or beach of this double lake, open 
chasms send up, from fiery springs, through dense clouds of smoke, 
a perpetual column of blazing sulphur. Another spring, somewhat 
higher, seethes like a vast furnace, as it pours forth column after 
column of mingled mud and gaseous fluid, with reverberating 
sounds like thunder. The banks of solid rock are almost perpen- 
dicular. Gathering clouds, driven by strong winds from the west- 
ward, when they reach the precipice, roll in broad volumes down 
its sides into the abyss; absorbing, then, the sulphurous fumes, 
they rise on the opposite side of the crater, charged with their min- 
eral burden, which they distribute, on their return to the upper air. 
While contemplating these gigantic efforts of Nature, continued 
through ages, to resume her lost tranquillity and silence, we were 
shivering with cold and hunger. The plain surrounding the vol- 
cano, and indeed the entire surface of the mountain-summit, though 
covered with such vegetation as the mineral blasts allow to flourish, 
is incrusted with volcanic ashes, like those which buried Pompeii 
and other cities on the slopes of Vesuvius. In descending, we 
peered constantly through the forest, to get sight of the tiger, 
which is the terror of the island. Our guides, though armed 
against him, informed us that the beast has become wary, and no 
longer attacks men in bands. 

Earth can have no scene more enchanting than the dark, tower- 
ing mountains, shading off into verdant plains, which spread before 
our eyes as we made our way back to the village we had left in 
the morning. "We overtook, as we thought, the very clouds which 
we had seen rolling through the sulphurous crater, and, driving 
through them, were drenched with rain. Then, again, when the 



DUTCH KULE IN JAVA. 309 

sun shone out, we trod the silver lining of other clouds, which 
were pouring their floods upon illuminated plains below. 

A dinner, with good wine, and plenty of it, which our young 
chief had ordered, awaited us at the foot of the mountain, and he 
now presided right royally over the welcome entertainment. A 
second dinner at the palace closed the day. 

"We have come to like our host vastly. He is genial and joyous 
in his intervals of gout, and, by a certain sympathy, has come to 
understand much of our English, and to make us comprehend his 
vernacular. America is a subject of inexhaustible interest to him. 
He understands it so well, that when Mr. Seward asked him to 
what country he thought William Freeman, the colored servant, 
who speaks English, and wears a European costume, belonged, he 
replied, " He was born in America, the son of a slave." He was 
entertaining us to-day with accounts of his great ancestry, when 
our young Dutch companion asked him what evidence he had of 
this lineage. He answered, with spirit, "What evidence have we 
that we all descended from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden \ " 
The Dutch seem constantly on the watch for treachery on his part. 
But suspicion is the punishment of usurpation. It apprehends dis- 
loyalty and treachery on every side. Would it be treason, indeed, 
in this humiliated and pensioned wearer of twelve diamond-hilted 
ancestral swords, to strike with them a blow for the lost sceptre of 
his tribe ? 

For ourselves, we cannot but think that the Dutch rule in this 
island, after two hundred years of trial, with their successive wars, 
is at last safely established. It can only be shaken now by tyranny 
so extreme and violent as to arouse to resistance a simple race who 
as yet have never acquired the first idea either of personal freedom 
or of national independence. 



CHAPTER V. 

AT B ATA VIA AGAIN.— THE MALAYS. 



Farewell to Bandong. — A Tropical Breakfast. — A Breakfast in the Botanical Gardens. — 
A Princely Native Artist. — Dutch Colonization. — Character of the Malay Race. — 
Chinese Immigration. 



Batavia, January 25th. — We bade farewell to the magnificent 
chief of Bandong, at sunrise yesterday, and we breakfasted with hirn 
at Sjiandjioer, enjoying in both cases the honors of music and the 
golden umbrella. We bathed and slept last night in the rose-gar- 
dens of Sindanlaya. At noon to-day, we reentered the palace of 
Buitenzorg, which name, we now learn, was borrowed from the 
palace of Frederick the Great at Potsdam — Sans-souci. 

A pretty illustration of tropical life greeted us here. The gov- 
ernor-general was absent ; the ladies were just assembled at break- 
fast in the coolest of marble halls, dressed in the degagee habit 
which the Europeans have adopted from the natives here : hair fall- 
ing naturally over the shoulders, the white " short-gown " of our 
grandmothers, made fanciful with ruffles and bright buttons ; a gay- 
colored muslin skirt {sarong), not fastened by a belt, but softly fold- 
ed around the figure ; naked feet thrust into gold-embroidered 
slippers. After sharing their breakfast with us, they loaded our 
carriages with roses and passion-flowers, and lotuses, each flower in 
itself a bouquet. It was with sincere and unaffected regret that we 
parted with our newly-made friends, and so we are here once more 



A SOCIAL BREAKFAST. 



311 



at our Batavia home, after a week in the country, filled with the 
kindest of hospitalities and most valuable of instructions. 







BATH AT 8INDANLATA. 



January 26th. — The Resident of the province of Batavia, with 
the ladies of his family, gave us, this morning, a social breakfast in 
the Botanical Gardens, under arching banyan-trees, in the presence 
of a larger and gayer assembly than ever before has graced a feast 
in our experience. These spectators were inquisitive monkeys, 
graceful giraffes, noble lions, magnificent tigers, loquacious parrots, 
and splendid peacocks, not to speak of birds-of-paradise. In short, 



312 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

the Zoological Museum was the scene of our festivity. When the 
repast was over, we visited the museum, which is very rich in 
Malay antiquities and curiosities, chiefly war and official costumes, 
ornaments, and weapons, from all parts of the Eastern Archipelago. 

The Hall of the Council of the Indies, in the government pal- 
ace, is a spacious one, and adorned appropriately with a full collec- 
tion of life-size portraits of the successive governors-general. 

Java is proud of the native prince Rahclen Saleh, who in Europe 
acquired great proficiency in the arts of painting and architecture. 
His most celebrated artistic achievements are, the Botanical Gar- 
dens, in which we breakfasted ; a fine portrait of the governor-gen- 
eral (Myer) ; and his own Italian villa, in the suburbs of Batavia. 

Mr. Pell gathered at his table, in the evening, a pleasant party 
of Americans. This island is visited more by Americans than by 
any other class of travellers. 

Batavia- Roads, Steamer Singapore, January 26tk, Evening. — 
To avoid an early and precipitate embarkation to-morrow, we pro- 
cured a steam-tender, and came on board a packet still smaller than 
the Koningin der Nederlanden. 

What we have seen in Java, and learned there of other islands, 
justifies us in pronouncing the Dutch colonization in the East 
Indies a great and beneficent success. Less than twenty thou- 
sand Dutch colonists have established over a native population 
of seventeen millions the sway of the mother-country, which num- 
bers only four millions. Notwithstanding occasional insurrections, 
that sway may be regarded as firmly established. It ought to 
enhance our admiration of the enterprise, that, during two hun- 
dred years of its history, the Netherlands had to overcome not 
alone the natives of the islands, but also to maintain an almost 
constant conflict with European competitors in these distant seas 
— Portugal, Spain, France, and Great Britain. Its administra- 
tion is severely criticised in British circles, on the ground of its 
wearing too prominently the features of narrow mercantile monop- 
oly. Although these features must be admitted to be tyrannical, it 
cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the Dutch Government 



THE MALAY RACE. 313 

has practised far less severity and cruelty toward the natives of the 
Archipelago than Spain, and Great Britain, and their successors 
the United States, have practised in America. Holland has neither 
exterminated native populations in the Archipelago, nor imposed 
slavery on them, nor introduced African slavery among them. 
The Dutch development of the resources of Java has been effective. 
The island has an agriculture surpassing that of any other country, 
and has also a valuable and increasing foreign commerce. So far 
as we can perceive, it is free alike from political and social dis- 
content, and certainly it is free from pauperism. Nor is it to be 
overlooked that the Malays have been raised to the partial exer- 
cise of political functions. The government, while it tolerates all 
religions, encourages missionary instruction, and maintains schools 
so generally that a Javanese who is unable to read and write in 
his own language is exceptional. At the same time it must be 
admitted that no such vivifying social sentiments as those of per- 
sonal liberty and national independence have been conceived by 
the Malays ; and, while we can no longer doubt that the ultimate 
civilization of the whole human race is within the design of Provi- 
dence, we must reconcile ourselves to laws which render the prog- 
ress of civilization slow, and seemingly uncertain. 

The Malay race is not homogeneous; it has many distinct 
branches. The branches which were found by the European dis- 
coverers on the peninsula, and on the islands of Sumatra and 
Java, were compact and organized states, which had long before 
emerged from the tribal condition. Nevertheless, the Malays are 
intellectually as well as physically feeble. The European discov- 
erers alleged that they could not count ten. But in one art they 
excelled all mankind — this was the art of irrigation. So incon- 
gruous does this skill seem to be, that we might almost deem it 
an instinct rather than an acquirement of the Malays. Although 
the same European explorers describe the Malays as subtle and 
treacherous, we are obliged to conclude that they are a docile and 
tractable people. They received their earliest religion from the 
Bramins of India, as is proved by the ruins of Hindoo temples of 
vast proportions and great magnificence. They exchanged that re- 



314 



THE EASTERN" ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 



ligion, with entire docility, for the faith of the crescent, which was 
brought to them from Arabia by the apostles of Mohammed. There 
was one occasion, indeed, in their history when they proved intrac- 
table and hostile. At the time of the arrival of the Europeans, not 
only the Malayan Peninsula, but Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, were 
found the field of active Chinese colonization. The European his- 
torians represent that the natives sought to exterminate the Chinese 
immigrants here, on exactly the same grounds that Chinese immi- 
gration is opposed in the United States, namely, a fear that it 
would establish a system of heathen barbarism. In this native re- 
sistance to Chinese colonization, the European adventurers con- 
curred and cooperated for a long time. But it has, at last, happily 
ceased. The Dutch East India Government, as well as the British 
Government at Singapore, are now effectively engaged in promot- 
ing that immigration in their respective colonies. 




CHAPTER VI. 

FROM BATAVIA TO MADRAS. 

An Uncomfortable Steamer. — An Accident. — At Singapore. — British Hospitality. — The 
Port of Penang. — A Loyal Englishman. — Bay of Bengal. — Half-Way Round the 
World. — Arrival at Ceylon. — Point de Galle. — A Short Visit to the Shore. — A 
Hindoo Crew. — Off Pondicherry. 

Steamer Singapore, January 31st. — If one wishes to learn how 
skilfully common-carriers, demanding the highest rates for freight 
and passage, can inflict the greatest discomfort, we recommend to 
him a lesson on the Singapore. She was appointed to leave Batavia 
on the 25th, while the British steamer to Ceylon was to leave Sin- 
gapore on February 1st. But the Singapore, which is the slowest 
vessel of the line, did not sail until the 27th. Notwithstanding 
this change of time, we hoped for two days of rest at Singapore. 
The cabin is a dove-cote — the holes are reached from the deck by a 
perpendicular ladder. "We had the whole dove-cote to ourselves 
the night we lay in the roads at Batavia. The next night, and all 
other nights, we escaped from its stifling imprisonment by having 
our mattresses spread on the deck and protected by awnings. Our 
new lodging was made intolerably noisy by the incessant tramp of 
passengers, officers, seamen, and servants. A dozen milch-cows 
were hauled by their horns on deck, before we left port. Fifty 
miles at sea, one of them mutinied, and leaped overboard ; the 
ship gave her stern-chase, bow-chase, and cross-chase, for five hours ; 



316 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

it was an unequal chase, but steam-power, baffled so long, prevailed 
at last. 

During the night, when we were crossing the mouth of the 
straits of Sunda, a northwest monsoon put the steamer to another 
trial. The condenser gave way at midnight, and the vessel be- 
came a log. We, who were wakeful and alarmed, saw the officers 
hurrying backward and forward, whispering rather than proclaim- 
ing their commands. We overheard them discoursing how to make 
up the ship's deficiency in life-boats in case she should be driven 
on the beach. It was a new experience to go down, in that tem- 
pestuous night, into the seething ship's hold, and take our money 
from our trunks and prepare for the apprehended disaster. What 
might not be our fate, if, escaping from the perils of the sea, we 
should reach the savage shore of Sumatra ? Should we encounter 
there serpents, wild-beasts, cannibals? The storm, however, re- 
lented a little ; after working the pumps, and hammering on the 
condenser, the engineer repaired the broken machinery, and the 
vessel resumed her course. 

We were demoralized by travel in this intemperate climate. 
The coarse food was not at all to our liking ; we fell back on the 
fruits. The first day, lemons, limes, even bottled lemonade, were 
exhausted ; the next day, the oranges, bananas, and pineapples ; 
the third day, and afterward, we had stale bread and bad coffee. 
We have arrived here at midnight, on the fifth day of our voyage. 
No signal has been given of the steamer, and we therefore sleep 
on board, although we are to embark on the Behar for Ceylon, to- 
morrow. 

Steamer Behar, Straits of Malacca, February 1st. — The unin- 
structed telegraph, at dawn, signalled the Singapore as a Dutch 
man-of-war. Nobody expected Mr. Seward in a belligerent char- 
acter, especially under a Dutch flag. Governor Ord and Consul 
Jewell, however, discovered the mistake, and took us ashore after 
long delay. The true English hospitality of Sir George and Lady 
Ord, at Government House, soon banished the remembrance of the 
perils and privations of our recent voyage. 



THE STRAITS OF SUNDA. 317 

Strength commands respect, and success, at last, overpowers 
envy. The same European populace of Singapore, which, only 
a very few years ago, cheered the American rebel Semmes, when 
he went out and came in there from his traitorous depredations on 
unprotected national commerce, now followed our little American 
party to the wharf, and, as the Behar cast off her lines at four 
o'clock, they shouted, with evident good-will : " Three cheers for 
Governor Seward, three cheers for the ladies ! " " Well," said Mr. 
Seward, " let it be so ; it is not an unwholesome instruction that the 
nation which would enjoy the respect of other nations must retain 
its claim to it by union and courage." 

Penang, February 3d. — As the straits of Sunda are the cus- 
tomary channel of vessels which round Cape Horn for Java, China, 
and Japan, so the straits of Malacca are the proper passage for ves- 
sels of like destination, which come by the way of the Cape of Good 
Hope. The British Government has, with its usual sagacity, 
secured the ancient town of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. The 
straits are four hundred miles long. We have made the passage 
hither in forty-two hours, seeing often the high hills of Sumatra on 
our left, and the flat Malay Peninsula always in view on our right. 
The straits here are seven miles wide, and deep enough for vessels 
of the largest size. The mountainous, wooded island of Penang 
rises abruptly out of the sea, and lesser islands lend a picturesque 
aspect to the harbor. 

The port of Penang, sometimes called Georgetown, with a pop- 
ulation of four thousand, may, some time ago, have flourished, but 
it is now in a condition of neglect and decline. The population of 
the island of Penang is forty thousand. Governor Orel, like every 
one else in this region, represents the Malays as improvident and 
idle. He bases his hope of the prosperity of the settlement upon 
Chinese immigration. Among the twenty or thirty boats, which 
came off here for passengers and freight, only one was Malay ; all 
the others were Chinese built, and manned by Chinese. 

"We have improved, as best we could, the six hours' stay with 
which the Behar has indulged us here. In carriages, with Hindoo 



318 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

drivers, we made great speed, over a smooth road, to see a cascade 
on the West Mountain, two thousand feet above the sea. The 
people whom we passed, on the road- side, were often standing or 
reclining in careless and picturesque attitudes, under the cocoa-nut 
and arika palms. They seem effeminate and languid. Manifestly, 
however, they bestow careful attention on their costumes, grace- 
fully made up of pure white or bright-colored turbans, flowing 
sashes, and gay sarongs. 

There is an approximation to similarity in the dwellings of the 
Malays and Chinese here, while the foreign bungalows exhibit a 
sad corruption of European architecture, without gain from the 
Oriental. On all sides, and at every turn, there are swinging 
sign-boards, which announce " Licensed to sell ardent spirits." If 
alcohol is not admitted to be a^civilizer, it cannot be denied that 
it is a leveller. 

After making a considerable descent, we reached a brawling 
torrent. We followed its bank under the shade of native forests. 
A small plain near the foot of the cascade furnishes the site for a 
little, rude, adobe Hindoo temple ; it has a rustic veranda, sup- 
ported by palm-saplings. Here we were welcomed by Bramins, 
who were assiduously engaged in plaiting bamboo curtains, and 
weaving garlands of mountain-flowers, for a festival to-morrow. 
We rested awhile under this simple but beautiful upholstery, and 
then foraged the adjoining woods for nutmegs and cloves. As- 
cending from this plain two or three hundred feet, over rough 
stone steps, we came to the basin into which the torrent plunges 
for a hundred feet or more, breaking into sparkling jets as it 
dashes against glistening granite rocks. Even we, prosaic as we 
are, could easily fancy that the caverns in these romantic rocks are 
inhabited by naiads and genii, such as are supposed to hold com- 
mune with the imaginative disciples of the oldest and most myste- 
rious of the religions of the East. 

Sitting on benches hewn from the rock, and refreshing ourselves 
with cool water drawn from the basin, we looked off upon the 
ocean, a dozen miles distant, calm and quiet, through a vista of tree- 
ferns, rooted high above the tops of the palms and spice-trees which 



HALF-WAY ROUND THE WORLD. 319 

grow on the plain below. Descending to the plain where we had 
left our carriages, we were served, at a rustic inn, with a lunch of 
broiled chickens and salad, and with wine from Xeres, which need- 
ed no "bush." The proprietor, a loyal Englishman, did not think 
it superfluous to tell us that the fountain in which we had bathed, 
the table on which we dined, and the cask from which the wine 
was drawn, had all been honored with the patronage of his Royal 
Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. How long will " her Majesty's 
command," and " his Royal Highness's protection," serve to adver- 
tise merchandise and inns in the East Indies ? 

On coming on board, we learned with regret that our hurried 
shore ramble had deprived us of a visit from the United States con- 
sul. 

Steamer Behar, Bay of Bengal, February 4th. — Penang city 
and roadstead passed from our sight with the setting sun. We 
have given the Southern Islands a wide berth. 

Now at noon, while the captain is taking his daily observations, 
Mr. Seward, pencil in hand, is making up his reckoning. " Cap- 
tain, I think we must be near the 98th meridian of east longitude, 
which will be half my voyage around the world." The captain 
answered, " That light-ship, sir, which you see on our right, marks 
the line you are inquiring for." 

Little do our friends at home, in their midnight slumber, dream 
that we are sitting, wide awake, directly over their heads. But we 
have a faint idea that this reflection has been made under similar 
circumstances before. 

The calm sea-surface is broken by a vast shoal of fish, violently 
throwing themselves into the air. "What has caused this great 
commotion ? " It is those two black-headed sharks peering over 
the water — vanguard, doubtless, of a ferocious army. 

February 7th. — The Indian Ocean justifies its renown. We 

have not had a wave too high, a cloud too dark, or a breeze too 

strong. We are actually regretting that this dreamy voyage must 

be broken at Ceylon to-morrow. A mattress on the deck of a Pen- 
23 



320 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

insular and Oriental steamer, on this ocean in February, is a luxury 
of rest. The glaring, blazing sun has scarcely set, before the moon 
and stars come out in full brilliancy. The sparkling Southern 
Cross traverses a short journey across the southern horizon, visibly 
changing its position every hour, and the tranquil night, without 
twilight, breaks suddenly into another cloudless and joyous day. 

Off Point de Galle, February 8th. — A letter from Lord Napier 
comes on board, protesting against our lingering at Ceylon, so as 
to fall into India in the hot season. We are obliged to be content, 
therefore, with an outside view of that famous island. We have 
been running nearly all day along its beautiful coast. A yellow 
beach, with dazzling breakers, fringes the forest verdure of the 
island. That verdure extends to a height of five thousand feet, 
when it gives place to a blue rocky ridge, from which rises Adam's 
Peak, nine thousand feet, and Haycock Hill, fourteen thousand. 
The fishing-craft here is as ingenious as its construction is peculiar. 
Being a canoe, scooped out of the trunk of a tree, it is too narrow 
for safety. It is, therefore, provided with a float attached to out- 
riggers at the right side. Fleets of these boats are moving around 
us, but, whatever pearls the fishermen may have taken from these 
rich waters, are too minute for our vision. So, also, if elephants 
are as numerous on the shores as they are represented to be, it 
must be remembered that an impenetrable jungle intervenes to 
conceal them from our sight. 

Steamship Columbia, 10 p.m., February 8th. — While we were 
writing our latest notes, a summons came for our transshipment 
from the Behar to this steamer. 

Point de Galle, or, as it is otherwise called, Galle, although 
described in some of the geographies as having a good harbor, has 
just no harbor at all. It has neither bay nor roadstead, but a piti- 
ful cove, into which the sea forces its way between two short ledges 
of rock projecting from the shore. These ledges, which are scarcely 
a quarter of a mile apart, seem to break the surf, and thus in fair 
weather afford something like a tranquil anchorage. This anchor- 



A FEW MINUTES IN CEYLON. 321 

age, however, can accommodate only five or six sea-going vessels, 
and every one of this number is exposed to great danger if it loses 
control of its ground-tackle, from hidden coral-rocks. Our fellow- 
passenger, Colonel Garden, of the British Army of India, tells us 
that one of these rocks wrecked and broke into pieces the steamer 
in which he was entering the harbor two years ago. 

This afternoon three steamers met here — the Behar bound for 
Suez, the Columbia for Madras, and a third for the Archipelago. 
With these came also a Portuguese man-of-war. The Behar, just 
before we left here, collided with a large iron ship, inflicting the 
loss of a boom, and suffering the loss of a life-boat and stanchions. 
We asked whether this is the best of the island ports, and were 
answered that Columbo, the only one available to the present trade, 
is worse. Nevertheless, the cove is beautiful to look upon. The 
shore is ten or twelve feet above the sea, and shaded with palms. 
Here and there a fanciful bungalow may be seen peeping from 
behind the dense groves. On a gentle elevation is a pretty Chris- 
tian church and spire, confronting a mosque and minarets not less 
conspicuous. At the water's edge is a line of white fortifications 
and barracks, with a lofty gateway leading to the town, built by 
the Portuguese. These buildings, substantial and old, are shel- 
tered by immense trees, of what sort we are unable to learn. 

Ten o'clock. — Until the moment of writing the last notes, Ave 
had entertained no hope of treading the soil of fragrant Ceylon. 
The captain of the Columbia tendered us his service to go ashore 
in his launch. We made our way, not without great difficulty, 
through the crowded shipping .to the stone steps under the mediae- 
val gateway. Ten minutes sufficed us to walk through the princi- 
pal street. We rested under the veranda of a comfortable, mod- 
ern hotel, making a hundred inquiries concerning the island and 
its wonders, continually interrupted by tempting offers of carved 
ebony elephants, coffee-wood sticks, cinnamon paper-cutters, Cin- 
galese lace, not to speak of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and sapphires. 
Having so soon " done" the town and island, we rowed among the 
shipping, dodging a rudder here, a propeller there, and native raft- 



322 THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, ETC. 

boats on every side, until a flash from the ship's gun summoned all 
on board. The most inspiring incident of this day's experience 
was the last. The moon had not risen, and the night was dark 
and cloudy when our propeller was put in motion. A blue light 
on the Columbia's bow signalled that her movement was to begin. 
Instantly a brilliant torch, fed by impish natives, blazed on each 
one of the hundred beacons which rose on the sharp ledges of the 
channel, and soon we were moving through a maze of bonfires to 
the open sea. At this moment, a full moon, breaking through the 
clouds, poured her silver light over land and sea, adding a new 
and inconceivable brilliancy to the scene. 

Bay of Bengal, February 9th. — The route to Madras requires 
that we retrace to the end of the island the course by which we 
reached Point de Galle. We are now steering northward, along 
the eastern coast of Ceylon. 

The island constitutes a distinct British province, and its gov- 
ernment is under the direct supervision of the Secretary of State 
for India. Its people, all Cingalese, are doubtless of Hindoo 
extraction. The prevailing religion, that of Buddha, we are in- 
clined to think, flourishes more vigorously there than on the con- 
tinent. British and American missionaries labor harmoniously 
together, and report that they have one pupil in their schools, for 
every ninety of the native population. 

We have at last left the Chinese, as well as the American and 
European seamen, behind us. All our crew are Hindoos. Except 
ourselves, all the passengers are British. They are all civil or mili- 
tary officers of the Government. Within the memories of many of 
them, journeys in India were made with elephant-trains. After 
this came the Peninsular and Oriental steamers, and now railways. 
Business-men go directly by rail from Bombay to Calcutta, while 
families prefer the slower and easier journey by sea around the 
peninsula, touching at Ceylon. The steamers also transport the 
troops and stores for the Indian army. 

We already feel that the continental empire is the one absorb- 
ing British interest, to which Ceylon and the Straits Settlement are 



PONDICHERRY. 323 

subordinate. What we hear discussed are the political and social 
questions of the capital, Calcutta. Our fellow-passengers condole 
with us that our arrival will be too late for the court season. 

Off Pondicherry. — It will be remembered that we found the 
French in Cochin China fortifying Saigon against German invasion. 
We heard yesterday at Point de Galle that one of the conditions of 
peace made by King William is the surrender of Pondicherry, the 
only other remaining relic of French conquest in the East. Mr. 
Seward does not believe the report. While he thinks that France 
may withdraw before long from the East, he thinks it quite too late 
for even united Germany to come here as a civilizer. It would 
involve nothing else than an attempt at universal empire, that 
dream which began with Alexander, and which lies buried in the 
tomb at the Hotel des Invalides. 

Pondicherry, without a harbor, is a dismantled city of forty 
thousand people, lying within the limits of the province of South 
Arcot, and is distant only eighty-seven miles from Madras. The 
British have heretofore seized it four times, in as many successive 
wars with France, and, although they have as often restored it, it 
lies nevertheless completely at their mercy. 



PART IV. 
BRITISH INDIA 



CHAPTER I. 

MADE AS. 

Madras from the Sea. — Governor Napier. — The Government House. — A Hindoo Girls' 
School. — Bishop Heber. — British Dominion in India. — Rear-Admiral Cockburn. — 
Machinery of Government. — A Meeting of the Executive Council. — Lord Cornwallis. 
— The Legislative Council. — Hindoo Music. 

Madras, February 11th. — This voyage of ours, westward 
around the world, subjects us to singular impressions. Since we 
left San Francisco, we have seen at every stage a more imposing 
demonstration of European power. Thus, we are reaching Europe 
by a flank movement. 

We first saw Madras from the sea, at a long distance, through a 
blue haze. It seemed commanding and beautiful, a city of Euro- 
pean aspect, stretching eight or ten miles along the Coromandel 
coast. It contains five hundred thousand people. Here, as at 
Yeddo, large gardens intervene between the different districts of 
the city. On coming near, its lofty buildings present a dingy 
appearance, an indication, we think, of commercial decline, result- 
ing from the opening of the railway from Bombay to Calcutta. 

Captain Napier took us off the steamer, and brought us directly 
to the Government House, the official residence of Francis, Lord 
Napier, Governor of the Presidency of Madras. It is a palace half 
European, half Oriental, with its proportions and appointments not 
unworthy of a magistrate who presides over a country which is as 
large as France, and contains almost as many million inhabitants. 



328 BRITISH INDIA. 

During Lord Napier's residence, as minister of Great Britain in 
the United States, a close friendship grew up between him and Mr. 
Seward, and between their families. That friendship has continued, 
through political and domestic vicissitudes. We therefore expected 
here, as we desired, not so much a distinguished reception, as a sin- 
cere welcome, with much-needed rest. These we are having, but 
not without such official demonstrations as we have met elsewhere. 
The appointments of Government House are magnificent. We 
notice a major-general's staff, with a guard of horse and foot, 
blazing in scarlet and gold ; civil secretaries, we know not how 
many ; servants counted by the score, at the head of whom arc 
seven native butlers, and at the foot a hundred wallahs (coolies), 
who do nothing but keep the jpunlcahs (swinging fans) in motion, 
in every part of the house, by day and by night. In the stables, 
two hundred horses ; and here we may say, that they have six races 
of the animal in India: the "Waler" from Australia, the "Cape" 
from Good Hope, the " Arabian," the " Persian," and the country- 
bred horse, a cross between the "Arabian" and "Waler," and a 
small horse from Burmak, which we like better than any pony we 
have seen in Asia. 

Madras, February 11th. — We accompanied Lady Napier to- 
day, at three o'clock, to an examination of a Hindoo girls'-school. 
Prizes were distributed to one hundred pupils, all under twelve 
years. This is the age of marriage in India. Jealous and ambi- 
tious parents anticipate it, by marrying their daughters to their 
appointed husbands at every stage of infancy and childhood. We 
were surprised, although we ought not to have been so, in seeing 
the children in this school quite black. They have, however, 
straight hair and regular features. They are slender in form and 
diminutive in stature, with extremely delicate hands and feet. 
They have a sad, pensive manner, entirely free from the content- 
ment and abandon which are noticeable among the colored children 
of the United States. Though of many different castes, all were 
dressed in either bright-colored muslins or gauzes interwoven with 
gold. Their fine black hair, their ears, their noses, their necks, 



M, ^T: 




llllllll 



m 






A HINDOO GIRLS'-SOHOOL. 329 

their arms, their wrists, their ankles, and their toes, were loaded 
with ornaments of silver, gold, pearls, and precious stones. A val- 
uation made at our request, of a set of ornaments worn by a child 
of six years, gave the figure of three hundred pounds sterling ! 
The prettiest costume of all was worn by a daughter of the con- 
verted Hindoo matron of the institution — a green satin vest, low 
at the neck, small short sleeves trimmed with gold lace ; white 
skirt over which was wound a long, full, rose-colored scarf; the 
necklace, ear-rings, and nose-rings, of gold coins. From the osten- 
tatious display of jewels, we inferred that the children had rich 
parents. But we soon learned that these ornaments constitute the 
entire fortune and estate of the wearer. Banks, stocks, and other 
institutions for the investment of capital, are little known or under- 
stood by the Hindoos. 

The children answered, some in the Tamil dialect, others in 
the Telugu, others in the Hindostanee, Bible questions of history 
and geography about as well as our own Sunday-school children of 
the same age. They were also examined in the most simple pro- 
cesses of arithmetic. A Tamil lyric was prettily sung by one class. 
Its plaintive strain recalled our negro melodies. The native air, 
to which Tamil verses in honor of Lady Napier were sung by the 
whole school, unmistakably breathed the refrain of " Dearest Mae." 
A Telugu lyric was less musical. Five thousand children are edu- 
cated in schools of this sort in Madras. Yery few, however, be- 
come Christians. 

Hindoo names always are significant. "We record the names 
of three pupils who received the first prizes : Ammaui, Matron ; 
Amurdum, Nectar; Sivaratura, Gem of Life. The best prizes 
were French dolls, and were . received with subdued but immense 
delight. 

A drive on the surf-beaten shore, where foreigners " most do 
congregate," closed our first day at Madras. 

Madras, February 12th. — We attended morning service at the 
cathedral, a spacious though unostentatious edifice. It was difficult 
at first to compose ourselves under the constant vibration of the 



330 BRITISH INDIA. 

punkahs, which swing without ceasing over the heads of the large 
congregation. The beautiful hymn which was sung recalled the 
memory of Heber, and a fine marble statue in the chancel gave us 
the classic lineaments of the great Bishop of Calcutta. He it was 
who was " zealous for his Church, and not forgetful of his station, 
but remembering it more for the duties than for the honors that 
were attached to it, and infinitely more zealous for the religious im- 
provement, and for the happiness and spiritual and worldly good 
of his fellow-creatures of every tongue, faith, and complexion." 

February \ttk. — How strange it seems that this dominion of 
India, with its two hundred millions of people, should be a de- 
pendency on the two small islands of distant Great Britain, which 
contain only thirty millions ! And yet there is a reason for it. 
Weak and ignorant tribes and nations are generally found depend- 
ent on stronger and more enlightened ones, if not absorbed by 
them. The dominions of Portugal, which never numbered more 
than four millions, were once nearly as extensive as those of Eng- 
land. "We have already seen the rich Eastern dominion of the 
little kingdom of the Netherlands, whose area is about that of 
Vermont or Maryland. Indeed, it seems as if dependence is, at 
some time, the normal condition of every nation. All prosperous 
nations must expand. That expansion will be made on adjacent 
regions if practicable ; if not practicable, it will then be made in 
those regions, however distant, which offer the least resistance. 
There is, however, a thought, connected with this subject, which 
is worth dwelling upon. Why have Portugal, Spain, and France, 
failed to retain the foreign dominions they founded, while the 
United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, continually 
acquire new territories, instead of losing those already secured? 
The reasons must be found in a difference in the characters and 
genius of the nations. Portugal colonized only with merchants 
and priests, and sought to monopolize the products of her colo- 
nies. Spain colonized only with soldiers and priests, and prac- 
tised restriction, monopoly, and extortion ; while Great Britain, 
Holland, and the United States, send out, for colonists, agricul- 



ADMIRAL COCKBURK 331 

turists, mechanics, miners, and laborers; and, when they cannot 
do this, they introduce cultivation, mining, and the mechanical 
arts, among the conquered people. France conquers, not for the 
development and improvement of the country subdued, or to 
increase her own wealth and power, but chiefly for the glory of 
the conquest. To compare great things with small, France con- 
quers, as the sportsman kills, only to show his skill as a marks- 
man. 

February 15th. — Rear- Admiral Cockburn, her Britannic Majes- 
ty's naval commander on the East India station, arrived here in 
his flag-ship, the Forte, on the 14th instant. The official and 
fashionable circles (by-the-way, both are very much one) all shower 
hospitalities upon him and his officers. They were entertained 
yesterday at dinner at Government House, and participated in the 
ball which was given to our party. The ball was in the great 
banqueting-hall, which is over the porte-cochere of the palace. Its 
roof is supported by a double row of lofty Corinthian columns. 
Instead of walls, the sides of this tropical ballroom are of movable 
lattice-work, admitting the sea-breeze on either side. Though we 
have chronicled many balls, this one was too splendid to be omit- 
ted. Like Mr. Seward's, however, the admiral's thoughts are not 
much diverted by the amusements of society. He is sixty years of 
age, a loyal and veteran British sailor, a good observer, and a zeal- 
ous philanthropist. The chief object, at present, of the naval police 
which he maintains over these waters, is to suppress the petty trade 
in slaves which is still carried on between the eastern coast of 
Africa and the shores of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and 
the Persian Gulf. Although the two gentlemen were entirely un- 
known to each other, Mr. Seward had the pleasant experience of 
finding the admiral an intelligent admirer of our country, and a 
sympathizer in Mr. Seward's political principles and sentiments. 

The admiral has tendered us a cruise in the Forte from Bombay 
to Muscat, with an excursion thence to the sites of Nineveh and 
Babylon. This voyage, if it be practicable, will be the complement 
of our Eastern travels. But it will require an early departure 



332 BRITISH INDIA. 

from Bombay, to avoid intolerable beat on tbe Euphrates as well as 
dangerous monsoons in the Persian Gulf. 

February 16th. — The British conquests in India are so recent, 
that the civil government can hardly yet be said to be consolidated. 
"Within the vast territories there are three great presidencies — Ben- 
gal, with Calcutta its capital ; Madras, its capital the city of Ma- 
dras ; and Bombay, its capital Bombay. The northern and eastern 
portions of the territory are divided into other provinces — the 
Northwest, the Central, and the Punjaub. A viceroy, appointed 
by the crown for four years, resides at Calcutta, and administers a 
form of federal government, while each presidency and province 
has its own local administration. There is associated with the vice- 
roy an Executive Council, whose members may be regarded as sec- 
retaries or ministers charged with portfolios of foreign affairs, 
finance, war, judiciary, post-office, improvements, and education. 
This Executive Council, like a cabinet council elsewhere, attends 
the viceroy semi-weekly or daily, as he requires. Its members are 
residents in India, and they are appointed by the viceroy, with the 
consent of the crown. "With the consent of this Executive Council, 
the viceroy appoints all magisterial and ministerial officers. There 
is also a Legislative Council, which consists of the same executive 
councillors, with the addition of a few residents of India, selected 
by the viceroy with the approval of the crown, to represent com- 
mercial and popular interests. This Legislative Council has also a 
member of the British bar, appointed by the Home Government, to 
be a legal adviser. In each of the councils the viceroy presides. 
He can veto, but not without rendering his reasons immediately to 
the crown. This Legislative Council, subject to approval from the 
Home Government, makes general laws and levies taxes. A major- 
ity in each council are British, but four, five, or six prominent na- 
tives of India, distinguished for rank, property, or merit, are added 
to each. The Executive Council sits with closed doors ; the Legis- 
lative Council debates in public. Its proceedings are reported as 
fully as those of the British Parliament, or of our own Congress. 
The governments of the several presidencies and provinces are con- 



INDIAN GOVERNMENT. 333 

structed entirely on the same model with that of the federal or im- 
perial government just described. Thus it will be seen that the 
government of British India differs from that of the United States 
chiefly in its denial of the elective principle. All its appointments 
are derived directly or indirectly from the crown. 

The greatest social difficulty of the Government consists in con- 
tending against the ancient laws and customs of caste. A touching 
incident, which may be regarded as showing the protest of human 
nature against the laws of caste, has just occurred : A young native 
woman was indicted for the murder of her child, whose father was 
of a lower caste than her own, and with which intermarriage was 
forbidden. She confessed that she strangled the infant rather than 
lose her caste. The jury, half native, half foreign, pronounced her 
not guilty, notwithstanding her confession. 

But the government of India, as we have described it, is not 
established in all parts of the conquered territory. There are 
many districts, some very large ones, which still remain under the 
government, more or less absolute and exclusive, of native heredi- 
tary princes, not unlike the Indian " nations " in the United States. 
All these provinces acknowledge the supremacy of the British Gov- 
ernment, and admit of its intervention in the local administration 
by way of advice or protest. Some of them, more independent 
than others, retain the simple relation of allies, offensive and de- 
fensive, with the Government at Calcutta. Other native princes 
submit to have their revenues collected by the Calcutta Govern- 
ment, and even applied by it for the welfare and improvement of 
the districts. Some admit judicial interference, others exclude it. 
Some maintain armies, others have surrendered that power. All 
India, doubtless, is in a transition state. Of such native districts or 
provinces, there are encircled within the limits of the Presidency 
of Madras, Travancore at the north end of the peninsula, Cape 
Comorin, Mysore in the centre of the peninsula, and Hyderabad 
in the northern part of the peninsula. The Prince of Mysore is 
divested of all authority, and, while allowed his titular rank, is a 
pensioned vassal, living under surveillance. The other two princes 

are allies offensive and defensive of the British crown, and are- 
26 



334 BRITISH INDIA. 

practically independent. Mr. Seward is attentively studying the 
working of this complex governmental machinery. He confesses 
that he thinks it would hardly go on smoothly in the United 
States. 

If a person, native or foreign, desires an audience of the gov- 
ernor, whether on business or not, he registers his name in the 
visitors' book in the adjutant's office. After two weeks, more or 
less, the governor gives notice that he will hold a public breakfast 
at the palace, at which those who have registered their names will 
be received. At this entertainment each person submits his appli- 
cation in turn. 

Mr. Lincoln used to receive promptly all who came to the 
White House before four o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. Seward 
has known many people sleep in the hall of the White House all 
night to receive an early audience in the morning. 

On the 14th, Mr. Seward drove with the governor to 
Fort St. George, where his lordship was to hold an Executive 
Council. Even this simple affair was made the occasion of a 
pageant greater than is ever seen at Washington except at inau- 
guration. The governor was escorted by fifty sepoys, huge white 
umbrellas were held over him and over the heads of the ministers 
as they respectively arrived at the gate of the fortress. A corps of 
retainers attended each up the staircase and to the door of the 
council-chamber. The opening of the session was announced by 
the firing of a gun. Mr. Seward was received by the members, and, 
after a pleasant interview, withdrew to amuse himself with a sur- 
vey of this celebrated fortification. With its foundation, in 1639, 
the story of British conquest in India began. It is identified with 
the memorable wars, particularly those of Lord Clive, by which 
that conquest has been perfected. Besides an arsenal, it contains a 
double line of bomb-proofs to accommodate one thousand men. 
The esplanade in front of the fort is protected against the sea by a 
massive stone-wall. 

A statue of Lord Cornwallis is a principal embellishment. It 
was a surprise to us Americans to see so honorable a monument 
raised in these colonies to the general who surrendered the last of 



A REVOLUTIONARY ANECDOTE. 335 

the British armies at Yorktown, and so yielded the last resistance 
to the independence of the American colonies. The British gen- 
eral, however, retrieved that misfortune by a successful and. brill- 
iant career as Governor-General of India. Happily for his fame, 
his American disaster is as little remembered by the British nation, 
as his successes in India are remembered in the United States. 

Mr. Seward, recalls a curious anecdote connected with the Corn- 
wallis surrender at Yorktown. Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, 
had been president of the Continental Congress, and. had been 
appointed minister to the Netherlands. He was captured on his 
passage and imprisoned, in the Tower of London, and held for trial 
as a traitor to the crown. General "Washington showed his con- 
sideration for the father by delegating Captain Laurens, the son of 
the imprisoned minister, to receive the sword of Cornwallis at York- 
town. When news of the surrender reached London, Henry Lau- 
rens was brought before the Court of King's Bench, and discharged 
from imprisonment on his own recognizance. They say that he 
persisted in amending the recognizance by interpolating the word 
not. " I, Henry Laurens, acknowledge myself to be held and firmly 
bound unto " not " my sovereign lord, King George the Third," 
and that Lord Mansfield, finding him obstinate, said, " Let him 
take the recognizance in his own way." 

Fehruanj l&th. — Mr. Seward attended to-day a session of the 
Legislative Council. The morning papers describe the council and 
audience as follows : " At the meeting of the Legislative Council 
held at the council-chambers of Fort St. George to-day, there were 
present the Right Honorable Lord Napier, President, the Honora- 
ble A. J. Arbuthnot, J. B. Norton, J. D. Surin, P. Macfadyen, A. 
F. Brown, Mir Humayoon, Jah Bahadur, Gu Gujapatti How, and 
Y. Ranueugae. 

" The Honorable William H. Seward, Mr. J. Sutherland, and a 
European pensioner were present." 

We learn that the Mr. Sutherland mentioned is himself the 
reporter, but all inquiries have failed to ascertain why the third 
auditor was described by the vague term of "European pensioner." 



336 BRITISH INDIA. 

As the names of the councillors would imply, five are British, 
and four are natives. The subject was a project of a law to raise 
revenue for education, police, and irrigation, within the presidency. 
The debates disclosed the fact that there is no recognized line of 
separation between the powers of the " Imperial " Government, at 
Calcutta, and those of the provinces, in regard to the rights of taxar 
tion and the sources of revenue. The debates on this occasion 
revealed what in the United States would be distinguished as a 
strong jealousy of State rights — a jealousy, indeed, so great as to 
endanger the entire fabric of government if appeal could be allowed 
to popular suffrage. Practically, however, these demonstrations 
are of little value. The "Imperial" Government may do what it 
lists ; provincial authority is rather ornamental than effective. All 
the members spoke, or, rather, read written speeches. Those of the 
natives were not less able and instructive than those of the British. 
It is a curious illustration of the inevitable presence of faction in 
every form of government, that, although this Legislative Council 
consists of only eleven members, all of whom derive their appoint- 
ments from the crown and are responsible to it alone, it is never- 
theless divided into two parties, and we strangers, who have been 
less than a week here, already understand them. 

Yirgil sang " arms and the man," who, driven to exile, left his 
native land to build a state on a foreign shore. Our theme seems 
to be, arts and the men who voluntarily go into exile to build a 
state in distant lands. 

Three bands were summoned this morning, to give us an idea 
of native music. All their instruments, with the exception of two 
violins, were Indian reeds, lutes, and drums. The performances 
were elaborate, but unmusical and unintelligible. We asked their 
meaning. The performers explained with manifest alacrity. We 
regret to say that even after this explanation we were unable to dis- 
tinguish the dirge for a lost soul from the epithalamium. When 
the first had been performed, Lord Napier asked the leader, a slen- 
der Hindoo with large, flashing eyes and graceful bearing, to recite 
and interpret the words of the melody. He rose, made profound 
salams, and then, standing erect, in solemn and measured manner 



THE "LANCERS" QUADRILLE. 337 

chanted his answer : " The words, ray lord, are an appeal to the 
gods, to allow the poor soul to be consumed immediately with lire, 
that it may no longer be tormented with remorse." We had 
already become weary of the performance, when the third band 
broke into a discordant imitation of the old "Lancers" quadrille. 
The musicians were dismissed forthwith, not much to their satisfac- 
tion, although largely rewarded, for they had reckoned on a full 
day's performance. Hindoo music must have declined here, or it 
must have been very much improved in Java since its introduction 
there. 











CHAPTER II. 

MADRAS {Continued). 

An Excursion to Arcot. — Railroads in Hindostan. — Appearance of the Country. — The 
Homage of Flowers. — Cauverypak. — The Native System of Cultivation. — Visit to 
a Bramin. — Schools. — A Car of Juggernaut. — The Dutch Reformed Mission. — Back 
to Madras. — The Portuguese Settlement. — Gindy Park. — A Diamond Merchant. — 
Lord and Lady Napier. — The Normal School. 

February 20th. — We left Madras on the 18th, with Lord Na- 
pier, in a special train. Arcot, the capital of the famous province 
of that name, is seventy miles distant from Madras. A renewal of 
railroad travel, after an interval of six months, in which we had 
come half-way around the globe, was exhilarating. The road, the 
engine, and the cars, are of European construction, and even the 
coal is imported from Wales. The gauge, five feet eight, is uniform 
in India ; but the Government, on considerations of economy, has 
concluded to contract it to the very narrow one recently proposed in 
Europe. There are three classes of passengers, the third the cheap- 
est and most numerous. The soil of the region through which we 
passed is light ; the rocks, granite. The landscape wears a dull, 
yellowish color, although there is no want of palm and cactus. We 
seemed to be travelling alternately through sandy fields or meadows 
covered with stagnant water. We soon learned, however, that 
these pools are artificial reservoirs for irrigation. In some places, 
the prevailing sterile aspect is relieved by fields of growing rice. 
The peasantry dress chiefly in white. The herds of very small cat- 
tle are more numerous than we expected to find in a country where 



THE CITY OF RANEPET. 339 

the people abstain from animal food. The country seemed entirely- 
level, but we gained in the journey an ascent of one thousand feet 
on the base of the Neilgherry Mountains, one of the three great 
ranges which traverse the Indian peninsula. At this point, w<? 
might have supposed that we were entering the Rocky Mountains 
at Cheyenne. 

As we rolled over the plain into the shaded streets of the an- 
cient city of Ranepet, Mr. Seward said to Lord Napier, "Now I 
know, for the first time, that British authority is firmly established 
in India." 

We seem, on this excursion, to be reviewing the history of the 
conquest. The mountain-passes, the plains, and the monuments, 
continually recall to our thoughts the first seizure of Madras ; the 
subsequent contentions, conflicts, surprises, stratagems, fears, con- 
spiracies, extortions, rapacities, and massacres, which, continuing 
through a period of two hundred and fifty years, have ended at 
last with the suppression of the mutiny of 1857. 

In 1745, there was a native war for the succession of the king- 
dom of the Carnatic, which included the province of Arcot. The 
French, at Pondicherry, maintained the cause of one claimant ; the 
British, at Trinchinopoly and Madras, maintained the other. Ma- 
dras was closely besieged by the French and allies. Clive, then 
merely a clerk in the British East India Company's office at Ma- 
dras, proposed to force a raising of the siege by making a move 
on Arcot. His brilliant success in surprising and capturing and 
holding it four months, with less than four hundred men, against 
ten thousand French and native troops, was the beginning of the 
matchless career of that leader whom the elder Pitt pronounced a 
" heaven-born general." 

Notice of the governor's coming to Arcot had been sent forward. 
The native collector of revenue met us at Ranepet, the railway- 
station for that district. He is thirty years old, speaks English 
fluently, and was elaborately dressed in native costume. He was 
surrounded by some dozen Hindoos. He proceeded at once to 
place in Lord Napier's hands flowers and fresh limes, at the same 
time covering him with garlands of flowers. When the agent had 



340 BRITISH INDIA. 

been presented to us, we were severally honored with the same 
compliment. We inquired whether this was a voluntary and popu- 
lar expression of welcome, or a prescribed one, and learned that the 
ceremony is the Hindoo form of homage to a ruler. At the gate 
of the station we encountered a crowd, obsequious rather than 
respectful, who threw flowers in our path, and invested us with 
new wreaths. Thus splendidly adorned, we passed under a floral 
arch to the carriages. At the instant of stepping in, a Hindoo band 
broke into a musical jargon, which frightened the horses, threaten- 
ing us with serious danger. A sepoy body of infantry had loaded, 
intending to honor his excellency with a fusillade, but at our re- 
quest that ceremony was dispensed with. We drove over a good 
turnpike causeway to the village of Ranepet, a suburb of Arcot. 
The road is bordered with mangoes, tamarinds, yellow flowering 
acacia, and the Acacia vera, whose juice when coagulated is gum- 
Arabic. Honorary green arches decorated the way, and innumera- 
ble flambeaux illuminated it. The approach to the town showed us 
the never-failing Hindoo temple, which, however small, is always 
graceful in form, and elegant in construction ; opposite to it, is a 
Mohammedan mosque, and, farther on, a chapel of the Church of 
England, and an American mission meeting-house. Here also are 
the offices of the collector of the revenue. These buildings, together 
with the barracks and many weather-worn monuments of British 
heroes who fell here, are the only relics of the city of Arcot, so dis- 
tinguished in the history of the conquest. For aught we can see, 
the natives have forgotten, if they ever had the idea of, political 
independence. We were the guests of the British superior officer 
of the district. Yesterday morning our party divided ; Lord Napier 
and Mr. Seward went to see the fountain and agricultural village 
of Cauverypak, distant thirty miles. Artificial conduits intercept 
mountain-torrents, and convey their waters to this reservoir, which 
is enclosed by a granite wall supported by broad embankments. A 
dam, forty feet high, is raised across the natural outlet. . The em- 
bankments are strengthened, on the outer declivity, by mango and 
palm trees. Thus the reservoir forms a lake of pure water, high 
above the surrounding country, which is five miles wide and seven 



HINDOO AGRICULTURE. 341 

miles long — and, at high water, thirteen feet deep. We have taken 
pains to describe this pretty lake of Cauverypak, because it is a 
good specimen of ancient reservoirs, constructed for irrigation, in 
the country — which are innumerable — and all of which alike bear 
the ugly name of " tank." 

The system of culture will be easily understood when we have 
mentioned that a broad plain stretches away from the base of the 
fountain farther than the eye can reach. Out of this plain arise 
thirty-two gentle knolls, on each of which stands an agricultural 
village, and these villages contain an aggregate population of a 
hundred and fifty thousand. Cauverypak is one of these. These 
people cultivate the entire plain in fields varying from an acre 
to fifteen acres. The staple production is rice. Grounds which, 
owing to a drought, fail to receive a full supply of water from the 
reservoir, are called " dry fields," and these are tilled with cereals 
and vegetables, or serve as pasturage for sheep and cattle. Cau- 
verypak was found exactly in its present condition by the first 
British adventurers, but it stands without record or tradition. 

It was a principle of the system of native government in India, 
that not only all the lands, but also all the waters in a province, 
belong to the reigning prince, whatever title he might wear, king, 
maharajah, rajah, or nawab. He leased them to zemindars (large 
landlords), or to ryots (lesser farmers), who paid for their use 
according to a tariff" graduated with just relation to the productive- 
ness of the estates. 

The British Government has come into the places of the princes, 
and the Madras presidency maintains the "tanks," and receives 
the rents. The average rent is four dollars per acre. 

Drought is a normal incident in India, and is the cause of the 
famines of which we so often read. In such cases the Government 
remits the rents, but the zemindars and ryots are nevertheless left 
without means for the support of their families. The extortion 
practised upon them by usurers is frightful. Cauverypak village 
contains ten thousand people, three hundred of whom are ryots ; 
the others chiefly mechanics and laborers. Many of the ryots 
belong to the privileged castes of Bramins, who were not only 



342 BRITISH INDIA. 

exempt from labor, but forbidden it. Lord ISTapier and Mr. Sew- 
ard were received by the chief Bramin ryot at bis bouse. It is a 
stone structure of one low story, witb reception-room, dining-room, 
kitchen, and stable, built around on all sides of an open square. 
In the centre of the square, was a reservoir, an open cistern for 
gathering and holding rain. Again we ask, Did the Romans bor- 
row their impluvium from the East % In rear of this quadrangular 
building is another of exactly the same form and dimensions. The 
one opening on the street is the dwelling of the ryot and his family ; 
the other is appropriated to the use of visitors. In the stable are 
six small oxen, which are used in cultivation, the whole six valued 
at seventy-five dollars. The manure, like the animals themselves, 
being sacred, is carefully preserved for burning in the temples. 
Hindoo architecture has a peculiar feature. The veranda, indis- 
pensable in this climate, is supported by delicate, palm-shaped 
columns, each of which is ornamented with a broad brass band at 
the top. There are no bedrooms, but each corridor or passage- 
way has at each end a dais eighteen inches high, covered with a 
mat, which serves for a bed. The small garden-plat attached to 
the house is filled with cocoa-nut trees, bananas, and beans. The 
Bramin' s furniture is simple enough. He has two plain tables, 
two bamboo chairs, and several fine silken rugs. Refreshments are 
not usually offered, but on this occasion fresh milk was served in 
brazen jugs. The village has two Hindoo temples and one 
mosque. The school, maintained by the Madras government, has 
a hundred and fifty native pupils. Besides this, there are twenty 
native schools, some Hindoo, some Mohammedan, where pupils are 
received and taught separately, with careful regard to their social 
castes. Mr. Seward asked the ryot, who is a spiritual authority, 
whether education is approved by the Bramins. " Yes," answered 
the Hindoo. " Why % " " Because it is pleasing to the gods." 
" Why does it please the gods ? " " Because it improves the mind, 
aud makes it appreciative of heaven." 

The poor villagers gathered around the visitors, and some of 
the older ones seemed desirous of conversation. They gave Mr. 
Seward an account of the number of pupils in each of the several 



A OAR OF JUGGERNAUT. 343 

schools. They seemed confounded when he asked if these num- 
bers included the girls ; they replied, " Only the boys." When 
asked how the girls are educated, they said, "No girls are educated 
except ISTautch girls." 

Passing through an open paved square, Mr. Seward's attention 
was caught by a rough, uncouth, and unwieldy vehicle. It consists 
of a platform ten feet long and eight feet wide, laid upon axles, on 
which turned four wooden wheels, all of one size, not more than 
ten or twelve inches in diameter. In front of the platform stands 
a carved and unpainted idol, ten feet high, with hideous allegorical 
emblems and devices. This is a car of Juggernaut. It is drawn 
through the streets by the people, during sacred ceremonies. Im- 
molation of devotees is now forbidden by British law. There would 
seem, however, to be little need for that prohibition. It would 
require great skill and effort on the part of a votary to get his neck 
under the wheels of the awkward machine. If we did not know 
that superstition is as blind as it is overpowering, we could not 
believe that any human mind could conceive such a deformed and 
misshapen statue to be a god. Mr. Seward's survey of the interest- 
ing little village closed with an exploration of the suburb which is 
allotted to the pariahs, the lepers, the outcasts of India. Their 
habitations are mean and wretched beyond description, but their 
condition is not without a compensation. While all other castes 
are obliged by their laws to abstain from animal. food, and forbid- 
den to take animal life, the pariahs are allowed to use the car- 
casses of the animals found dead. In this way, they have become 
the tanners of the country. It is no wonder that they are care- 
fully watched, to prevent their slaying domestic animals under the 
pretext of finding them dead. 

During their long drive, Lord Napier and Mr. Seward saw only 
one beggar, and he was blind — a Bramin. Having been led up 
to their carriage by neighbors, he declined to receive alms, because 
he had left behind him his brazen basin through which he alone 
could accept coin from any one not of his own caste, without per- 
sonal contamination. When, however, he felt the weight of a 
rupee carefully dropped into his sleeve, he turned his eyeballs 



344 BRITISH INDIA. 

in the direction from which the party had come, and sung a plain- 
tive native melody. Lord Napier asked how old he was ; he 
answered, "Seventy." "What is the song you have sung so 
sweetly \ " " It is a hymn of praise to the gods whom your lord- 
ship passed on the road as you came here." " How is it you sing 
to the gods, when they have made you blind ? " " The gods have 
indeed willed that I shall be blind," the mendicant Hindoo replied, 
" but they protect me still." 

During Mr. Seward's absence the ladies remained at Eanepet. 
They had appointed to attend early worship at the missionary- 
chapel. The matin summons was sounded, not by bells, but by a 
noisy chattering of birds. Springing up and going quickly to the 
veranda, they saw that the deciduous trees around the bungalow 
(which had dropped nearly all their leaves) were as green as ever, 
for they were filled with parrots and paroquets. 

The Arcot mission of the Dutch Reformed Church of America 
(now the Reformed Church) was established in 1855, by three 
brothers Scudder, sons of the eminent missionary who labored here 
thirty years ago. Beyond a doubt, the success of this mission is. 
due to the persevering energy and winning address of these 
preachers, but it was more to their happy combination of medical 
practice with their religious teachings. Medical science and skill 
are at a low ebb on the Asiatic Continent, while they have attained 
a high development in the "West. This superiority is known and 
felt even by the very lowest classes in the East. The Christian 
physician, who comes to heal the body, naturally finds his patient 
in a proper temper for the healing of the soul. 

The municipal district in which the Arcot mission is established 
is about one hundred and sixty miles square. The missionaries 
found within it only thirty-five native Christians, and these were 
without a church or a school. The missionaries (six in number) 
have now fifty native helpers, who teach day-school in seventeen 
villages. They have their boarding-schools, two for boys, one for 
girls, all voluntary pupils. The converts intermarry. The chil- 
dren thus educated, although belonging to all the various castes of 
the country, are placed upon a footing of complete equality. The 



I 



THE MISSIONARY HOSPITAL. 345 

boarding-school at Eanepet, which is the most successful one, oc- 
cupies large government barracks. Dr. Scudder has introduced 
some trades into this school, the principal one that of weaving on 
native looms. But even a more beneficent institution than these 
schools is a medical hospital. The Madras government appropri- 
ates to it, in addition to the requisite buildings, one hundred and 
seventy-two rupees (about eighty-five dollars) monthly. The in- 
stitution was founded in 1866, and, during the past year, fifty-three 
thousand nine htmdred and sixty -three patients were gratuitously 
treated from its dispensary. Seven hundred and fifty-three of 
these were in-door patients, who were provided with beds, food, 
and clothing. Lord Napier has added to this useful charity a 
spacious house in which persons of different castes may prepare 
their own food and live separately, according to their native cus- 
toms. This noble mission draws from its patrons in the United 
States only twenty-five thousand dollars a year. The simple 
^ homes, frugal habits, and patient labors, of these missionaries and 
their families, are worthy of all praise and admiration. The mis- 
sionaries are full of hope, though they confess the work of conver- 
sion is very slow. They gain only one hundred a year within the 
district. Nevertheless a manifest improvement in the condition of 
the people is visible. With this improvement, if it shall go on, we 
must be content, for we trust that — 

"Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, 
Man's conscience is the oracle of God." 

February 23d. — We visited yesterday the suburb called the 
" Portuguese Settlement ; " so called, not because it is under Por- 
tuguese jurisdiction, but because it was the site of the Portuguese 
factory, before the British conquest. Its inhabitants, of native and 
mixed Portuguese, are Christians, and speak the Portuguese lan- 
guage. They have a cathedral, with an exemplary bishop from 
Lisbon. The cathedral bears the name of St. Thomas, to whom 
tradition attributes the first teaching of the gospel here. However 
this particular fact may be, the opinion that that apostle preached 
the gospel on the Coromandel coast is well supported by historical 



346' BRITISH INDIA. 

arguments. Marco Polo found native Christians here, who claimed 
that their church was planted by the doubting disciple. Yasco de 
Gama found native Christians on the coast during his second voyage 
of discovery. Guides show us the hill and cave at Malapoo, where 
it is alleged that St. Thomas sought refuge and suffered martyrdom. 
They say that even the threshold of the cave still bears the impress 
of his foot. 

Gindy Parle, February 2±tk. — We have come to pass a day at 
this summer palace. On the way we inspected a " model farm," 
which is maintained by the Madras government. Three hundred 
acres are divided into two ecpial parts, of which one is used for the 
cultivation of exotic grains, plants, and seeds ; the other is culti- 
vated with European implements only — the design being to com- 
mend "Western agriculture to the natives. We learn that the 
institution gains favor. We were much interested in a small ham- 
let through which we passed. The inhabitants are wanderers from 
Northern India. It . is maintained, not without plausibility, that 
the Gypsies of Europe are descended from the same class. Their 
pretty habitations are in mango-orchards, and are built of branches 
of palm, exactly in the shape of a beehive. They gather the fruit, 
and pay to the Madras government an annual rent of two rupees 
(a dollar) a year for each tree. We imagine they are the only rent- 
paying tenants of their outcast race. We have seen a specimen of 
Hindoo village-schools. Thirty boys, most of them naked, were 
sitting in the sand, under the shade of a wide-spreading mango- 
tree, in a circle. The master stood in the centre, rod in hand, and 
gave out successive lessons, in the Tamil language, in spelling and 
arithmetic. The whole school, simultaneously, took the words from 
his mouth, giving them back with their own ; and at the same time 
wrote the words with their lingers in the sand. These children 
showed great agility, as well as quickness of apprehension. ~No 
sooner had they written the text in the ground, than they sprang to 
their feet, raised their right hands to their foreheads and made a 
salam, indicating that they were ready to receive the next lesson. 
We crossed a stone bridge which has stood a hundred and fifty 



GINDY PARK. 347 

years with only the repair of a parapet. A small tenement beneath 
the bridge was pointed out to us as the dwelling of the descendants 
of the Armenian merchant who brought himself to poverty in build- 
ing the magnificent structure. 

Gindy House is even more extensive and elegant than Govern- 
ment House at Madras. The park contains fifteen hundred acres. 
Native deer, of the four kinds known in India, sport on the lawns. 
Instead of alighting at a gate or porte-cochere, we were driven to 
a shade in the beautiful gardens. They exhibit a luxuriance 
unknown in colder climates. Every wall, every thatched roof, 
every gateway and column, seems to have been especially designed 
to support a flowering creeper, which nearly conceals the structure, 
and these plants are as various in hue as in the form of tendril or 
leaf. Efforts are made to produce northern exotics, as studied as 
those which we at home make to cultivate tropical plants. The 
success in each case is about the same. 

We doubt which was most effective, the gorgeous display of 
flowers around us, or the dew-drops which glistened on grass, and 
flowers, and trees, under the rays of the morning sun. The heat 
increasing rapidly, we took shelter under a noble mango, where 
the morning libation of tea was made. We talked and laughed at 
translations of the highly-imaginative native poetry. We dined 
en famille at the palace, and, as the evening shades came on, 
adjourned to a fete-champetre in the gardens, The society of 
Madras was there. If any thing was needed to heighten the brill- 
iant scene, it was found in the exquisite music of the military 
bands, which played airs in echo across the broad park and on its 
beautiful lakes. 

Madras, February 26lh. — New acquaintances and new studies. 
The diamond merchant is an important personage in every Asiatic 
country, for diamonds are the favorite investment of wealth. An 
eminent Armenian of that class breakfasted at Government House 
this morning. His organ of perception is strongly developed, and 
he has a shrewd, almost furtive expression. He was entertained 
in the most acceptable manner by being allowed to exhibit for 



348 BRITISH INDIA. 

our instruction the contents of his waistcoat-pockets, consisting of 
diamonds of every size and of every water, jewels quite sufficient 
for a coronation, and even enough to satisfy the ambition of a Fifth 
Avenue belle. He gave us a relation of what he considered the 
greatest transaction of his life : Having acquired in the course of 
trade an extraordinary diamond, he sent his son to Europe to sell 
it. The son was admitted to the Tuileries, and the empress bought 
it; it is one of the "pear-shaped" diamond ear-rings which figured 
so conspicuously in the inventory of her jewels. The empress 
called for "the regent," and showed it to the young Armenian. 
" My son," said the merchant, " was permitted to take that cele- 
brated gem in his hand ; he looked into it through tears of joy, 
and did not give it back until he had pressed it to his lips." 

Evening. — It will be a mournful day for Madras when Lord and 
Lady Napier take their leave. While he builds and endows uni- 
versities and hospitals, there is no charity which she neglects. We 
visited an orphan asylum with her to-day, and afterward an asylum 
for the children of the Sepoys. Although the studies for the day 
were ended, and the children were at play in the grounds, they 
came cheerfully up and took their places in the examination-room. 
They inquired what they should sing for us. Mr. Seward proposed 
" From Greenland's icy mountains." They sang it in full chorus, 
and insisted upon our naming another. They sang this too ; then, 
following us to the gate, gave us " God save the Queen." 

Perhaps the best, certainly the most interesting, of these noble 
charities, is the normal school for the instruction of native women. 
It has fifteen pupils, all of high caste. They are educated free of 
charge, and even paid for their attendance. They are driven to 
and from the school-house in close carriages, so that they may not 
be " seen of men." We fear that the importance of this noble step 
toward the civilization of the East is scarcely realized at home. 
We noticed among the pupils a girl of seventeen, distinguished 
from her dark-eyed companions by a sad demeanor and plaintive 
voice. In a single year she had lost her husband whom she loved, 
and her only child. The laws of her caste doomed her to seclusion 



THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 



349 
The 



and celibacy for life, to give up her jewels, friends, and hopes, 
normal school allows her activity, cheerfulness, and usefulness. 

We learn that the Duke of Argyll, Secretary for India, takes a 
deep interest in the institution, and has just sent out from England 
a young lady to take charge of it, who was educated for that pur- 
pose in the United States. 




THE SUEF AT MADEA.S. 



•27 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM MADRAS TO CALCUTTA. 



The Surf at Madras.— On the Bay of Bengal.— The Lion-Whelps.— The Hoogly.— The 
Viceroy's Invitation. — Earl and Countess Mayo. — Glimpses of Calcutta. — The Baboo. 
— The Baboo's House and Harem. — The Government House. 



Steamer Australia, Bay of Bengal, February 27th. — The surf 
never ceases to beat and break against the shore at Madras. A 
dozen years ago an attempt was made to overcome the difficulty by 
extending a pier into the sea. But there was found neither capi- 
tal nor engineering skill anywhere sufficient to make the work 
effective. 

We insisted on leaving the shore in the primitive way. A 
native surf-boat, eighteen feet long, five feet wide, and six feet deep, 
was hauled high and dry on the beach. The boat is constructed 
with bamboo-withes instead of spikes and nails, to prevent leakage, 
and of material so light, and proportions so exact, that no weight of 
water will cause it to sink. It is presumed always that, notwith- 
standing the boat is so deep, it will fill in going through the break- 
ers. For this reason, the passengers, as well as the oarsmen, sit on 
benches which are stretched across the boat's brim, and each bench 
serves as a brace for the feet of the occupants of the bench behind it. 
We were lifted in chairs by Hindoos and spilled on the benches in 
the stern, under the awning of British flags. A secretary and an 
aide-de-camp of the governor were with ns, and we enjoyed our 



THE LION-WHELPS. 351 

new excitement as our score of boatmen, with merry shouts and 
cheerful song, laboriously forced the boat through the foaming 
surf. 

We sailed at four o'clock. If the thought gave us sadness that 
we were never to see Madras again, we consoled ourselves with the 
reflection that, even if a return were possible, we should not find 
there the same friends ; and what could we see, or know, or enjoy, 
there without them ? 

Bay of Bengal, February 28th. — Once again on the same calm 
sea, with the same southern breezes, protected by the broad awning 
from the same burning sun. Our two weeks of rest and recreation 
at Madras already seem not so much an episode of our voyage, as 
a refreshing and inspiring dream. At daylight we had reached 
shoal water, and a channel marked by lighted buoys. Birds sur- 
rounded the ship in great numbers. Sailing-ships and steamers 
continually shot by us. Consulting the chart, we found that, al- 
though no land was visible, we had entered between the capes 
which guard the entrance of the Hoogly into the bay of Bengal. 
We took a native pilot. 

The Hoogly is one of the rivers which, dividing into a thou- 
sand creeks, and through as many lagoons, discharge the mighty 
flood of the Ganges. Ever-moving sand-bars render the navigation 
here uncertain and perilous. We slackened our speed from forty- 
nine to fourteen revolutions until the flood-tide set in. Low, sandy 
shores at length appeared. Subject at all seasons to terrible inun- 
dations, they have never been reclaimed for tillage, and are often 
strewn with the bodies of animals, and sometimes with human 
bodies. 

Our ship ought to receive a demonstrative welcome at Calcutta, 
for she bears two African lion-whelps to grace the menagerie of 
some potentate there ; whether native prince or European viceroy, 
we have not learned. Although but three months old, these 
" babes " have attained a large size. They stare at us boldly with 
their big green eyes, and switch their tails with a savage inde- 
pendence. 



352 BKITISH INDIA. 

March 1st. — The Hoogly has shrunk to the width of the Hud- 
son at Poughkeepsie. The vegetation here is as luxuriant as at the 
equator. Very soon, however, these palm-shaded fields, though so 
freshly overflowed, will become dry and brown. 

Although we are entering Calcutta before the vernal equinox, 
the heat is already intense. If we distrust our strength to explore 
the continent before us, we have nevertheless the inspiring thought 
that we are floating on the Ganges we have so long desired to see — 
the Ganges, notwithstanding it is called here by the less eupho- 
nious name of the Hoogly. 

Calcutta, March 2d. — As we approached the wharf yesterday, 
the viceroy's barge — manned by thirty Bengalese boatmen in scarlet 
livery — rounded up to the Australia's side. Major Burne (private 
secretary of the viceroy) came on board, accompanied by the 
United States consul-general, Mr. Jacobs, and Mr. McAllister, an 
American residing here. Major Burne delivered a letter from the 
viceroy, inviting us to be guests at Government House during our 
stay here. Mr. Seward had before accepted the invitation of the 
consul-general and Mr. McAllister. The matter was quickly com- 
promised, with the understanding that, after passing some days 
w T ith our countrymen, we should accept the hospitalities of the 
viceroy. 

Last night happened to be a "state" one at the opera; that is 
to say, the performance then was to be honored by the presence of 
the viceroy. The representation of " Lucia di Lammermoor " by an 
Italian troupe, before a fashionable assemblage, made us aware that 
we had at last reached the Eastern verge of Western society. 
Earl Mayo and the Countess of Mayo, in the central box, were sur- 
rounded by their suite, and a group of native princes, or rajahs, 
whose gold and jewels far outshone those worn by the ladies of the 
viceregal court. Between the acts Mr. Seward was presented to 
the viceroy, and afterward to the brilliant circle. His lordship in- , 
sisted that Mr. Seward, without taking upon himself the trouble of 
making a preliminary visit, should with his family lunch at Govern- 
ment House to-day, and then, or as soon after as convenient, become 



THE CITY OF PAJLACES. 353 

inmates of that household. He was further informed that carriages 
and barges would be at his orders during his stay here. 

The Earl of Mayo is purely Irish. He is tall, handsome, and 
has a commandiug presence, with manners which, though dignified, 
are frank and genial. As Lord ISTaas, he was many years a conser- 
vative member of Parliament, and was Secretary for Ireland during 
the Disraeli administration. 

March 2d, Evening. — We have enjoyed a pleasant morning at 
Government House. This evening, the few Americans residing 
here dined with us at Mr. McAllister's. The fact that they all 
hail from Boston is creditable to the enterprise of that intellectual 
city. 

During the day we had some glimpses of Calcutta. If it were 
in the West, its aspect would hardly justify the distinction it bears 
— "the City of Palaces." The government buildings are indeed 
extensive, numerous, and substantial ; but, in point of architecture, 
they are respectable rather than imposing. Private dwellings of 
foreigners combine European solidity with the graceful Oriental 
verandas and columns ; but they have no pretentious magnificence. 
The native city contains many stately residences of pleasant aspect, 
hut generally the dwellings are low and common. The appearance 
■of the whole city (the foreign as well as the native part) is spoiled 
by a wretched stucco which, hj exposure to the weather, becomes 
dingy and discolored. The suburbs on the river-banks are disfig- 
ured with brick-yards, counted not by hundreds, but by thousands. 
The array would seem to indicate that the city is enjoying a vigor- 
ous growth ; inquiry, however, brings out the fact that no sand fit 
for building is found in the vicinity, and bricks are therefore burned 
and pulverized as a substitute for that necessary article. 

March Uh. — A northeaster set in on the 1st, and we have 
since had cold rains. The " oldest inhabitant " says that this is a 
new freak of the climate. Hard as it has rained, we have never- 
theless been obliged to go abroad, for — after seven months' travel, 
as may be easily imagined — we have pretty much come to the 



354 BRITISH INDIA. 

unhappy condition of our celebrated countrywoman, " Miss Flora 
McFlirnsey." Our troubles are aggravated at the state of the 
market, which, they say, is just experiencing the calamitous effects 
of the war between Germany and France. Gloves are not to be 
had in Calcutta. 

The " haboo," called by Burke, in his invective against Warren 
Hastings, the " banyan," is a native trained to trade, and speaks 
English. Like the comprador in China and Japan, he attaches 
himself to a mercantile house, to an official contractor, or some 
other business concern (either native or foreign), and negotiates 
commercial matters ; receiving commissions from one party or the 
other, according to circumstances. He often rises to wealth and 
influence. One of this class solicited a visit from Mr. Seward, add- 
ing that, while the baboo and his sons would receive him, the ladies 
would be welcomed by the zenana. Such a courtesy is rarely, if 
ever, extended to foreigners. 

The foundation of this baboo's fortune was laid by his father 
long ago, in connection with an American house ; and the present 
incumbent, who is seventy years old, has added to his wealth and 
importance. He has now his fifth wife. We visited him to-day. 
The house, though more cheaply built than those of the wealthy 
class which we saw at Canton, is of the same model. It is three 
stories high, and covers the sides of a square as large as one of the 
blocks of Philadelphia. The area within is used for fountains and 
baths. A group, consisting of the baboo's three sons and their 
sons, received us at the gate, very obsequiously. They showed us 
the way to a grand hall, having a vaulted roof and double colon- 
nade. A few elegant chairs, with yellow-satin cushions, placed on 
a scarlet-velvet rug in the centre of the room, constituted the fur- 
niture. Here the eldest son welcomed Mr. Seward in a eulogistic 
English oration, and then presented his several brothers and each 
of the lads in attendance. Brightly-dressed servants meanwhile 
stirred the air with large peacock-fans, mounted on massive silver 
handles five feet long ; others, to the great prejudice of the ladies' 
dresses, sprinkled us from head to foot with rose-water from silver 
vases ; others, again, covered us with garlands and bouquets ; and 



THE BABOO'S HAREM. 355 

yet others held before us silver vases containing the attar of roses for 
perfuming the hands. These ceremonies over, we ascended to the 
baboo's room, in the third story. Quite infirm, he was dressed as a 
valetudinarian, though richly. He welcomed Mr. Seward as the 
a great father of the greatest of the nations." The baboo con- 
ducted us then to an adjacent drawing-room, and ordered that all 
the children of the house, not excepting the youngest, girls as well 
as boys, should be brought in by their ayahs (nurses). Twenty 
infants were brought in, gaudily dressed. The little ones acted 
their proper parts with entire truth to nature : some shrank 
backward ; many screamed ; one or two shrieked ; while others 
extended their small hands, and bashfully performed salams. 
After this came an order, from the baboo, as unexpected as it was 
unprecedented in that family. It was that all the women of the 
family, except the widows, should now enter the apartment. Re- 
ceiving this command, in their different rooms, the women inquired 
through a messenger whether they were to be seen by the ladies 
only. The baboo imperiously replied : " They must all be pre- 
sented to Mr. Seward, and receive him as a friend. He is a friend 
of mankind ; he shall see us just as we are, and see all that we do 
— we will have no secrets from him." This was intended as a 
great compliment to Mr. Seward. 

There was a sound of pattering feet, and a gentle rustling was 
heard. It was followed by the entrance of eight little women, all 
of whom were dressed in gauze of gold and various colors — only 
gleaming jewels could be seen through their veils. They trembled 
like so many aspens as they approached gracefully, lifted their slen- 
der arms — almost covered with gold — and extended to us their little 
nervous hands. The baboo was- not yet content. He requested us 
to raise their veils. We did so gently, and looked upon gazelle 
eyes and pretty features, but the wearers were so abashed that, in 
tenderness for them, we soon let the veils drop. In answer to our 
compliments, they spoke not a word. The gentlemen now with- 
drew. 

Mr. Seward was then shown through seventy-five rooms, in- 
cluding a family chapel — the furniture of all very meagre and 



356 BRITISH INDIA. 

plain, the stairs steep and narrow, and the corridors dark and 
perplexing. 

The women, being left alone with their visitors, now volun- 
tarily communicated, through a lady interpreter, all the family 
secrets : the number of wives each of the baboo's sons had married 
and lost ; the number of children of each wife ; and the number 
and value of the jewels each possessed. The wife of the eldest son 
presented her daughter — a bright and laughing maiden bedecked 
with jewels — who, having attained the advanced age of eighteen 
months, has already been married to a little gentleman who also 
was present, and who claims the experience of ten years. He has 
been elected to the honor of this marriage because he is the pre- 
sumptive head of the caste to which this family belongs. Accord- 
ing to the custom of the country, he has been brought into the 
family of his bride to be educated. There are eight pairs of such 
prematurely-married people in this family, which consists of sev- 
enty-five persons. 

The windows of all the chambers of the zenana, or harem, are 
darkened, and made secure with iron bars, as in a prison. The 
widows, even more secluded than the wives, inhabit the meanest 
and dingiest of the chambers. The women showed, with perfect 
freedom, their sleeping-rooms, baths, and the contents of their 
wardrobes. Each woman has three garments. These being woven 
in the shape required, there is no need of mantua-maker or milli- 
ner ; the only care bestowed on this property is to hang them up 
and take them down. The care of the children is devolved on the 
ayahs. As the wife neither sews, nor reads, nor writes, she has 
absolutely no occupation but to talk with her companions of the 
zenana ; and, as might perhaps be expected, domestic discords are 
frequent. The guests (in the zenana) were then served with cakes, 
comfits, and betel-nuts, the latter broken in small bits and folded 
in silver-foil. The interview closed with the same ceremonies with 
which we had been received, newly fanning the guests with pea- 
cocks' plumes, sprinkling them with rose-water, and perfuming the 
hands with the attar. 

The baboo, in his conversation with Mr. Seward, represented 



SWINGING ROUND THE CIRCLE. 357 

that a general discontent with British authority is felt by his coun- 
trymen, but he left it quite clear that they have not the faintest idea 
of uprising or of resistance. Helpless and listless, they follow the 
conflicts of the Western nations, only for the purpose of obtaining 
a hope — most unreasonable — that, amid the chances of war, India 
will receive a new conqueror, either the United States or Russia. 
Mr. Seward left the baboo without lending any encouragement to 
these political expectations. He joined the party in the grand hall 
below, when we were honored with the ceremonies twice before 
described ; besides, a treat of champagne, ice, coffee, and the hookah. 
The younger boys of the family now fell upon the floor and kissed 
our feet ; with their fathers, they attended us to the gates, and 
then dismissed us with such a shower of compliments and thanks 
as convinced us that even the Spanish language of courtesy is 
stinted and cold compared with Oriental flattery. If we are to 
believe them, " they still weep for our return." Eight bearers 
came after us bringing a tray filled with confectionery. 

Government House, March 7th. — "We. took up our residence 
here to-day. Although the distance from Mr. McAllister's house 
is short, the journey was long, and not made without some diffi- 
culty. We had appointed to be here at five o'clock, and, under 
viceregal leave, had directed the Bengalese coachman to come for 
us a little before that hour. He had, however, become accustomed 
to our daily habit of driving about the city, and did not understand 
our command to bring us here. He drove us up and down the 
strand, around the gardens, and through the city. Aware of his 
mistake, we, from time to time, enjoined upon him our commands — 
at last our entreaties — to drive directly to Government House. He 
changed his course every time, but only to drive in some new circle 
around the palace. We appealed in vain from the coachman to the 
footman and to the postilions. But, all being Bengalese, they un- 
derstood not a word, and so we went on, " swinging " faster and 
faster " around the circle." By a fortunate circumstance, we met 
Mr. Jacobs, who, addressing the coachman in his own vernacular, 
made him understand that it was the centre of the great circle that 



358 BRITISH INDIA. 

we desired to penetrate. An hour and a half having been spent 
in these gyrations, we found at the door of Government House, 
not Major Burne (who was to receive us), but a servant, charged to 
conduct us to our apartments, and to explain that the secretary, 
having waited until six o'clock, had gone to fulfil another, engage- 
ment. 

Government House, which was built during the administration 
of the Marquis of Wellesley, has dimensions perhaps one-fourth 
less than the Capitol at Washington. It is enclosed, with its gar- 
dens, by a high iron balustrade. Its walls are brick, covered with 
stucco ; the style, Italian. The arrangements and embellishments 
are English, and display that peculiar patriotic pride which seems 
to be of the same nature as the family pride of a distant or poor 
relation in social life. We almost imagine ourselves British colo- 
nists, living in the days of our ancestors, before the American 
Revolution. The noble, arched gateway is ornamented with no 
such modern and republican symbol as the " bird of freedom," 
with arrows and olive-branch in its claws. ISTor does cornice or 
architrave present any such mysterious legend as " E jpluribus 
unum. v Nor does tower or turret show any stars or stripes, or 
any modern tricolored ensign. Instead of all these, there are a lion 
and a unicorn over the gateway, and they are as usual " a-fighting 
for the crown," bearing on their necks the scroll with the daring 
words " Dieu et ynon droit" The stately cross of St. George 
flaunts from the palace-walls. Marquees and tents cover the plain, 
surmounted with the same flag ; and officers, soldiers, and ser- 
vants, all are clothed in the gorgeous scarlet-and-gold uniform 
which betokens British royal authority. A great gilded chair and 
canopy, at the upper end of a great hall, give it the ambitious 
name of " Throne-Room." The walls are covered with British 
portraits — prominent among them those of the obstinate George 
III. and Charlotte his faithful queen ; the Earl of Chatham and 
General Wolfe, Lord North, Lord Cornwallis, General Burgoyne, 
Lord Clive, and Warren Hastings. The ceremonies and etiquette 
of this palace are copied from those of Buckingham Palace. The 
person, stranger or otherwise, who desires or claims notice at court, 



TROPICAL BIRDS. 359 

instead of presenting letters or leaving cards, registers his name in 
the adjutant's book. If recognized, he is honored with audience ; 
if not, nothing is said. In the morning a list of the invited guests 
is submitted to each member of the family, and each guest residing 
in the family, and he answers whether he dines with the party or 
in private, or dines out. When the dinner-hour arrives, and the 
guests are assembled in the throne-room standing, the viceroy and 
the Countess of Mayo enter, each attended by an aide-de-camp, and 
salnte their guests individually. The band plays during the din- 
ner ; conversation at the table is subdued. Before the end, the 
viceroy rises — and with him the whole party — and he proposes, in 
a loud voice, the only sentiment of the evening: "The Queen." 
Then follows conversation, with amateur music, in the drawing- 
room ; at the end of which the viceregal hosts take leave of the 
party individually and retire. 

We are never able to forget, in-doors or out, that we are in the 
tropics. The adjutant-bird, formal and pensive, stands sentinel 
over the great gate. Resting on one leg, with his knowing head 
under his wing, he often sleeps on his post. Immense ravens, with 
drab collars and caps, are walking before and behind you on the 
piazzas. Parrots, in variegated costumes of green, gold, and scar- 
let, fill the trees ; martins, in jet-black coats ; and swallows, plain 
and brown ; twittering wrens, and thousands of slender minos, in- 
habit the cornices and capitals. Not unfrequently the birds per- 
sist, against all housewifely care and resistance, in building their 
nests in " coignes of vantage " found within the walls ; sometimes 
in the curtain-tenters ; sometimes on the tops of or behind picture- 
frames. In the evening, we find the veranda-floor in front of our 
apartments strewed with dry branches and twigs, which the bird- 
builders have deposited there in mass for further use. The next 
day the unwearied architects take up the material and bear it to 
its appointed place on shelf or cornice. The raven is especially a 
thief: flying in at the windows, he carries away any minute, bright 
article or ornament left exposed. The steward assured us that the 
birds have borrowed this naughty practice from the native servants, 
who, he alleges, are universally addicted to petty larceny. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CALCUTTA (Continued). 

The Maharajah of Putteeala. — Oriental Magnificence. — Kali Ghaut. — The Temple. — Hiit* 
doo Idols. — Kali. — Siva. — A Mohammedan Mosque. — The Reading of the Budget. — 
Indian Finances. — The King of Oude. — The Prince of Oude. 

March 9tk. — The fashionable promenade of Calcutta is the pub- 
lic garden, which is named Eden. The name, however, is not bor- 
rowed from paradise, as might be supposed, but was bestowed in 
compliment to the Hon. Miss Eden, the accomplished sister of Earl 
Godolphin Osborne, a former governor-general. We visited this 
garden yesterday with Lady Mayo, at sunset, for evening begins at 
sunset here. Brilliant gas-lights sparkling through the dark foliage 
of mango, palm, and cypress trees, with music from a central 
stand beneath them, lent their strong attractions. It was a gay 
scene. We walked on the green lawns, and for an hour listened to 
the music, surrounded by beautiful English ladies dressed from 
boxes just out from London and Paris ; 'happy children glad of 
release from confinement of nurses and school-room, chasing each 
other over the lawns ; army-officers in full-dress for dinner or the 
opera; stately baboos in white cambric; dusky Sepoy guards 
in white-and-red uniforms; rajahs in jewelled turbans and gold- 
embroidered robes ; and, in the back-ground, parsees, in their fun- 
nel hats, were seen in earnest converse. Mohammedans on their 
knees, with faces toward Mecca, were repeating their prayers. His 
highness the Maharajah of Putteeala, of Northern India, was one 




THE MAHARAJAH OF PUTTEEALA, 
Grand Commander of the Star of India. 



THE MAHARAJAH'S CONCERT. 361 

of the immediate circle around Lady Mayo. His family is distin- 
guished for loyalty to the British Government. His father rendered 
good service during the mutiny. For these considerations, he has 
recently been invested in great pomp with the order of the Star of 
India. In acknowledgment of that high distinction, he gives to- 
night a concert to Lord and Lady Mayo. He is a very athletic 
man, appearing to be thirty years old, but is, in fact, only twenty 
years. He speaks English imperfectly, and seems to have but a 
limited education. Mr. Seward asked him what were the produc- 
tions of his estates ? The maharajah answered : " I am not like 
the people you see here in Calcutta. I am a prince. I have many 
zemindars. I have power. I can hang the man if I like, and I 
can send anybody to jail for all his life." 

The " Star of India " is an order of knighthood which was pro- 
jected by Prince Albert, into which British subjects and natives 
of India are alike elected, on the ground of distinguished service to 
the British nation in India. They say that Prince Albert was 
perplexed to find a motto which should be equally inoffensive to 
Christians and heathens. He happily chose this : " Heaven's light 
our guide." 

March 10th. — The maharajah's concert was given in a style of 
Oriental magnificence at the town-hall, before an audience of twelve 
hundred, all of whom the prince had invited. An illuminated 
arch was raised above the porch of the building, and above it 
blazed the " Star of India," with all the effect which gas-jets and 
reflectors of burnished silver could produce. The vaulted roof of 
the building is supported by double rows of white Corinthian col- 
umns with corresponding pilasters. The ceiling and walls were 
painted in delicate green ; groups of rose-colored lamps were sus- 
pended between the columns and pilasters, and the nave was light- 
ed with transparencies designed to illustrate the greatness and 
glory of Britain. The splendid combination of light and color 
brought out in full relief the garlands and festoons of flowers which 
burdened the air with perfume. Sofas were arranged so as to 

afford the guests full freedom of promenade and conversation in 
23 



362 BRITISH INDIA. 

the intervals of the music. The maharajah, with royal munifi- 
cence, brought the entire operatic troupe upon the stage, while 
independent bands of music were stationed at all the approaches 
of the edifice. The turbaned and decorated prince appeared in his 
own proper regalia of gold and jewels, realizing the highest descrip- 
tions we have ever read of Eastern gorgeousness. He wore not 
only rings without number on his fingers, a golden girdle at his 
waist, necklaces of jewels, and " ropes of pearls " on his breast, but 
also a blue-and-gold satin robe, which was broidered to the depth 
of six inches with a solid mass of glittering precious stones. It is 
needless to say that the musical performance was very good, yet it 
was the ostentatious display which attended it that was the wonder 
of Calcutta that night. 

We went to-day in search of Kali Ghaut. It is the most famous 
of the Hindoo temples here, and from it the city derives its name. 
We found it in a base suburb. It has three disconnected struct- 
ures, which, although they are built after the customary models, 
and of solid materials, seem nevertheless mean, when seen with 
their vulgar surroundings. The floors of all are on one level, eight 
feet above the ground, and are reached by stone steps. The build- 
ing on the right hand is a circular one about fifteen feet high 
above the floor, open all around, with a roof supported by Hindoo 
columns. The central building is an oblong one. The third and 
principal edifice is a square surmounted by a dome, which ex- 
tends beyond the walls, and is supported by outside columns. It 
has no windows ; light is admitted through small doors on three 
sides. The building first described is the hall of sacrifice, into 
which only Bramin priests are admitted. The building last de- 
scribed contains the shrine of the goddess Kali, to whose service the 
Thugs especially devoted themselves. Not even its threshold must 
be profaned by the footstep of the vulgar. The central edifice is 
the worshippers', from which they pay their adoration to the divin- 
ity on the right hand, and on the other witness the sacrifices. A 
Bramin crowd dressed in clean white, many of them speaking un- 
commonly good English, were assiduous, though not obtrusive, in 
explaining the mysteries to us. As we went through the grounds. 



HINDOO TEMPLES. 363 

a native police sprang forth at every turn to protect us against any 
injury or offence. We waited an hour for the priest who had the 
keys. He came at last, arrayed in pure white — a tall man and dig- 
nified, in every way seeming worthy to serve at the altar. "With 
much labor, he unfastened a massive padlock, and, turning its 
heavy bolts backward, threw open a door on either side of the sanc- 
tuary, and disclosed to us through the dim light a wrought-iron or 
stone figure, of human proportions but scarcely of human shape. 
The idol is black, has three glaring red eyes, a broad golden tongue 
tipped with black, which projects from a distended mouth down to 
the waist, and is dripping with blood. The arms are large. The 
left hand holds a giant's head ; the right hand, a sword with which 
it has been severed — both crimsoned with blood. A necklace of 
infants' skulls graces the demon. Devout worshippers prostrated 
themselves around us, and something like mumbled prayers were 
heard as they beat their heads upon the pavement. We placed 
some rupees in a vessel before us ; these were thrown at the feet 
of Kali, and the doors were quickly closed. This savage deity 
called Kali is the wife of Siva, and is the author of all the evils 
which beset the human race. Bullocks and goats are sacrificed. 
Fire purifies the latter, and the offering is eaten by the priests ; 
the former, incapable of purification, are charitably given to pari- 
ahs. The ground around the hall of sacrifice is rank with the odor 
of putrefaction. One hundred and fifty Bramins and their families 
live in and about this temple. They seem to be supported by con- 
tributions of pilgrims, and by deprecatory offerings of merchants 
who are engaging in business enterprises. 

We went from the Kali Ghaut to a temple which is dedicated 
to Siva. The divinity here is a black spherical stone, ten inches 
in diameter, set on a concave stone of lighter color, in the centre 
of the pavement. The temple was too sacred to be desecrated 
by our feet. We were allowed only to look upon it through the 
open door. The attending priest threw the rupees upon the stone 
god. 

Walking from one temple to the other, we passed numerous 
idols. Some represent Juggernaut with a human face elongated 



36 i BRITISH INDIA. 

Into an elephant's trunk. Others represent Vishnu ; others, of 
grotesque shape, represent the children of Siva and Kali. If we 
were asked which one of the Oriental superstitions seems to us the 
most absurd, we should say it is that of the hideous Kali, the un- 
meaning Siva, and their misshapen offspring. 

We noticed that the Bramin attendants here value a god, not so 
much for his character, as for the costliness of the material of which 
he is made. They represented to us that it was not worth our 
while to visit Siva at all, because temple and idol are cheap and 
mean ; nor did they conceal their disrespect for the dingy elephan- 
tine children of Kali and Siva, but they expressed the profoundest 
awe and reverence for golden Kali. 

Returning to the city, we paused to admire a beautiful white 
marble memorial-masque, which has minarets at the angles, but no 
central dome. The muezzin was solemnly calling the faithful to 
evening-prayer. The porch was covered with the sandals of the 
worshippers, who had already entered the courts, which we were 
forbidden to profane. Is it strange that this Mohammedan struct- 
ure and worship, simple and severe, impressed us with sentiments 
of respect and even devotion, when thus seen in immediate contrast 
with the temples of the base Hindoo idols ? 

The memory which lingers here of the " Black Hole," the sub- 
limest horror in the history of India, is very faint. With the aid 
of an antiquarian, we found the site enclosed within the area of the 
Post-office. 

March 10th. — The reading of the "Budget " is here, as it is in 
England, the great political transaction of the year. It took place 
to-day, in the marble hall of Government House, in the presence 
of a considerable assemblage. Mr. Seward was honored with a 
privileged seat. The arrangement of the council-chamber was not 
unlike that of the cabinet council at the White House, except that 
the viceroy's seat is raised on the dais. The exposition of the 
finances, by Sir Richard Temple, was a lucid and elaborate perform- 
ance, but it wanted the tone of calm dignity which distinguishes 
the speeches of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the 



INDIAN FINANCES. 365 

report of the United States Secretary of the Treasury. The defer- 
ence toward home rule, which was manifested in every paragraph, 
was in strong contrast with the independent spirit of legislation on 
financial questions in the American colonies before our Revolution. 
In India, no councillor, nor any subject, questions the omnipotence 
of the Parliament of Great Britain. The debt of British India (in 
round numbers) is one hundred million pounds sterling — five times 
greater than the national debt of the United States before our civil 
war, and about one-fourth as large as the debt is at the present time. 
The revenue is about fifty million pounds sterling. Only an in- 
significant part is derived from customs, it being the policy of the 
Home Government to encourage the consumption of British manu- 
factures in the colonies. Eight million pounds sterling (net) is 
obtained from the culture and sale of opium, on which drug the 
Government makes an actual profit of one hundred per cent. Salt 
monopoly brings in five million pounds; a land-tax imposes the 
severe exaction of one and a quarter per cent, on valuation. None 
of these revenues excite as much discontent as the tax of two and a 
half per cent, on incomes, which is equally obnoxious to British 
residents and native zemindars. That tax must be abandoned, 
even at the cost of reduction of the military expenses. Railroad 
enterprise in India is worthy of all admiration ; although it was 
begun only twenty years ago, there are now five thousand miles of 
completed roads, and two hundred and fifty miles are added an- 
nually. The Government guarantees an income of five per cent, 
on the capital invested in railroads. They make a return thus far 
of only two and one-half per cent. When we consider the vast 
population and resources of India, there seems no reason to sup- 
pose that railroads will be less productive than in Europe and the 
United States. 

After the council, the members asked Mr. Seward whether his 
financial experience enabled him to make any suggestion for the 
removal of the difficulties arising out of the income-tax and the 
railroad subsidies. He answered : " Your railroads will increase 
the demand for foreign manufactures, an increase of customs will 
enable you to dispense with the income-tax ; the railroads, more- 



366 BRITISH INDIA. 

over, will enable you to reduce your army of one hundred and fifty 
thousand Sepoys, and your seventy-five thousand European troops, 
to much smaller figures. Having made these economies, you will 
then be ready to admit the natives to a limited representation in 
the provincial councils." 

All the members of the Government, natives as well as foreign- 
ers, are fitly-chosen, intelligent, able men. Mr. Seward pronounces 
Earl Mayo the " hardest worker " as well as the most sagacious of 
them all. 

March Wih. — The majestic declamations of Burke, in the trial 
of Warren Hastings, have made the civilized world familiar with 
the tragic story of the kingdom of Oude. We may, hereafter, have 
occasion to speak, not of the kingdom, but of the king. The last 
descendant of the native king, who reigned at Lucknow under the 
British protectorate, joined the mutiny in 1857. On its suppres- 
sion, he was deprived of the kingdom, but was allowed to retain his 
sovereign rank with a munificent pension, though obliged to reside 
in Calcutta, under government surveillance. Yesterday, we re- 
paired to his palace on the bank of the Hoogly, in compliance with 
his invitation. The royal residence consists of twelve stately edi- 
fices with colonnades, which accommodate retainers, servants, and 
soldiery, numbering in all ten thousand. A regiment of native 
troops gave Mr. 'Seward a salute at the grand gate, and we were 
received at the palace by the king's eldest son, the heir-apparent, 
who announced that his father, being very ill, had deputed him to 
be his representative on the occasion of our visit. We have never 
seen a handsomer youth, although he is swarthy. Dressed fully up 
to his character, he wore flowing robes of blue velvet, embroidered 
with gold, and his princely jewelled coronet. The titular King of 
Oude is probably the only monarch in the world who wears such 
antiquated head-gear as this. Doubtless, however, it is a pleasing 
reminder of the palmy state from which he has "fallen, fallen, 
fallen." 

The prince, in a most amiable and communicative temper, con- 
ducted us through the extensive flower-gardens, immense mena- 



KING OF OUDE'S MENAGERIE. 367 

geries, as well as aviaries and aquariums, neither of which, we ima- 
gine, have their equal in any part of the world. An account of the 
animals exhibited would be little less than a " catalogue." We saw 
huge boa-constrictors sleeping in their cages. The snake-charmer 
skilfully drew the cobra de capello from its prison, stretched it on 
the ground, and then with great dexterity seized it by the throat, 
and at pleasure made it open its mouth and show the strong, sharp, 
white fang, whose stroke is instant death, and beneath it the small 
sac in which the fatal venom is secreted. The ostrich, the bird- 
of-paradise, the pelican, the flamingo, the eagle, and the swan, are 
as domesticated as if they had known no other home. We counted 
one hundred species of the pigeon, nor can we recall the name of 
any tenant of the air which is not represented there. The aqua- 
riums are lakes, each covering an acre, and ten feet deep. Their 
inhabitants of all kinds came to be fed from our hands. An im- 
mense green tortoise was tempted to the shore by a bunch of 
bananas, and walked back seeming not at all oppressed by the bur- 
den of an attendant, who stood on his back, and who weighs nearly 
two hundred pounds. The English people here tell us that the 
munificent King of Oude is treacherous, and that his handsome son 
is graceless. But when has conqueror confided in his prisoner ? 

The viceroy has gone into the country for his customary weekly 
relaxation of boar-hunting. We drive with Lady Mayo and a com- 
pany of ladies and gentlemen, this evening, to Barrackpore. 



CHAPTER Y. 

BARRACKPORE AND SERAMPORE. 

Barraekpore Park and its Beauties. — Magnificent Trees. — The Menagerie. — The Lion- 
Whelps. — Serampore. — Its Missionaries and Mission-Schools. — Return from Bar- 
raekpore. — Fort William. — The Woman's Union Missionary Society and its Schools. 

Barraekpore Park, March 12th. — This viceregal country resi- 
dence stands on a curve of the Hoogly, sixteen miles north of Cal- 
cutta. Besides the palace, there is also a large military station. 
On the opposite bank of the river is Serampore, originally a Danish 
possession, but now British, and incorporated with Barraekpore. 

It is a relief to escape for a day from the sights and excitements 
of the capital. Yegetation is so luxuriant in India that wild beasts 
maintain their natural liberty in the midst of the densest human 
population. Just as the morning dawned the shrieks of these 
vicious beasts ceased, and the notes of the whippoorwill came in 
their place, as distinct and as piteous as when heard on the banks 
of the Potomac. But we are before our story. The hall in which 
we were received last night was far more magnificent than any we 
had ever before entered. Its circumference one thousand feet, its 
floor a green lawn, its roof the dense, dark fern-like foliage of the 
banyan-tree, its brown columns and arches, the trunks which have 
grown from the tendrils that dropped from the parent tree, and 
took root in the ground. Only Yirgil could celebrate so magnifi- 
cent a shade : 

" Tityre tu patulte recubans sub tegmine fagi." 



SERAMPORE MISSIONS. 369 

Of course, there is a menagerie, though it is a small one, at- 
tached to the palace. The Bengal tiger, the noblest of the feline 
race, is shown here with special pride. "We saw a superb fellow, 
which, now fully grown and quite savage, was one year ago a pet 
kitten in the nursery. We have renewed here the pleasant ac- 
quaintances which we formed with the lion-whelps who were our 
fellow-passengers on the Australian. They are very restless in 
their new quarters. "We find a novelty far more interesting than 
the menagerie. It is a troop of wild jackals, which make the 
" night hideous " with their howlings. For hours, we thought that 
the noise they made was that of an insurrection or a riot. 

On the invitation of the editor of The Friend of India, we 
crossed the river this morning and visited Serampore. It is well 
known in the United States as the place where the three devoted 
missionaries, Marshman, Carey, and "Ward, founded the first Ameri- 
can mission in India. They chose the site because it was then 
under the friendly flag of Denmark, while the regulations of the 
British East India Company forbade Christian missions within its 
jurisdiction. Serampore is also the scene of the first labors of the 
pious and indefatigable Judson. The scientific institutions as well 
as the press and libraries which the earnest men, whom we have 
mentioned, established, are still flourishing, while the very air of 
the quaint place seems redolent of their memories. After a pleas- 
ant collation, we examined these institutions. The missionaries 
educate one hundred and fifty children here in reading, writing, 
and arithmetic ; and fifty more up to the qualifications for admis- 
sion into the University of Calcutta. Mr. Seward asked what 
became of the youths who are thus educated % The missionaries 
answered that "the highest ambition of a Hindoo youth is a 
place in which he can wear a ' pen behind his ear.' ' : The young 
men secure the small places under the Government which are open 
to natives. "Very few of them become or remain Christians. 

March 13th. — We returned from Barrackpore this morning, 
with Lady Mayo and a party of twelve, in the " drag," drawn by 
six horses, directed by their postilions, and attended by a mounted 



370 BRITISH INDIA. 

escort. The roads were fine, the morning exhilarating. "We 
passed an elephant bearing a load of hay, the first of those animals 
we have seen in service. Mr. Seward passed the morning in a 
survey of Fort William. Built as a defence for the first British 
factory in Calcutta, and identified with all the great events in the 
history of the conquest, it still gives the official name to the seat of 
the government. But Fort "William, and all that Mr. Seward saw 
in it, belongs to the past. In his absence the ladies enjoyed the 
pleasure of studying a more modern and useful institution. 

It is the proud distinction of the United States that our coun- 
trywomen have designed and brought into execution a practical 
plan for the amelioration of society in India. Caste, in that coun- 
try, has its moral and civil as well as its theological code. Its laws 
are paramount to all laws and all institutions of government. It 
may be said of caste, just as truly as it was said of the laws of 
Moses, that " the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." Caste hin- 
dered and defeated two attempted reformations in India before the 
country became known to Europeans — Buddhism and Mohamme- 
danism. It is caste, the "letter" of the Hindoo law, that hinders 
Christianity, and seems to render the introduction of all "Western 
civilization impossible. Caste has effected all these evils and per- 
petuates them through the degradation of women. Christianity 
and "Western civilization can only be established through the res- 
toration of woman here as elsewhere to her just and lawful sphere. 
This restoration is just what "the "Woman's Union Missionary 
Society of America for Heathen Lands " is doing through the insti- 
tution they have established at Calcutta and its branches in the 
provinces, called the " Zenana Mission." We accompanied Miss 
Brittan, the superintendent of this institution, in her visitation of 
many of the zenanas, to which, by her unremitting zeal, assiduity, 
and gentleness, she has gained access. These families were gen- 
erally rich, like that of the baboo, which we have described. Some 
of them, however, are wretched and squalid. Even in these, the 
women, like those in the rich zenanas, are timid, gentle, loving 
creatures, and all alike are painfully desirous of instruction. The 
institution employs in Calcutta twelve American women as teach- 



BARRACEPORE. 



371 



ers. They have already instructed sixty native women, who have 
become assistant teachers. They have during the same time estab- 
lished an asylum where they support and train twenty additional 
girls for teachers. Miss Brittan counts seven hundred and fifty 
native women, who have been taught and qualified to become the 
wives of Hindoo youths who are prepared for official employment 
in the universities and schools established by the Government. It 
is pleasant to record that this noblest of charities enjoys the entire 
confidence and favor of Earl Mayo. 1 

1 We found on our return to the United States that the " Woman's Union Missionary- 
Society of America'' had fully adopted the idea of the importance of connecting the 
knowledge of medicine with the qualification of teacher. 








BAEEAOKPOEE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FROM CALCUTTA TO BENARES. 

Courtesy of the East India Railway Company. — Unattractive Scenery. — The Scenery 
improves. — Aspect of the Country and the People. — A stop at Patna. — A Tiger 
Hunter. — The Cultivation of the Poppy. — The Maharajah of Benares. — A Night 
on the Ganges. — A Brilliant Display. — Glory Hallelujah. — A Compliment to Mr. 
Seward. 

Benares, March 15th. — We left Government House, Calcutta, 
on the 13th, in the evening, and, with the aid of friends, made 
our way through a mixed and garrulous crowd which gathered at 
the wharf. We crossed the Hoogly in a capacious steam ferry- 
boat, and took possession of a car which had been furnished us, 
by the East India Railway Company, for our exclusive use while 
in the country. We attach it to, or detach it from, the train at 
our pleasure. It consists of two apartments, with a bath-room. 
Our Calcutta friends furnished us with a full supply of Boston ice. 

The night was dark. When we awoke in the morning, we 
looked out upon an unattractive plain, broken by ledges of rocks. 
The road was bordered with shallow tanks, filled with muddy water 
collected during the last rainy season, and frequent brick-kilns built 
to supply the material for the railway structures. An occasional 
herd of small lean cattle, sheep, and goats, with a tattered or naked 
attendant, was seen upon the scanty soil nearly covered with 
stunted trees and shrubs. A few mean farm-houses and wretched 
villages were visible. We thought India a sorry contrast to Japan 



BEAUTY OF THE COUNTKY. 373 

and Java, and even less cheerful than the sandy plain of the dismal 
Pei-ho. Referring to the map, we found that we were a hundred 
miles south of the Ganges, and that the dreary region we were 
traversing is a spur of the mountain-border of the great river-basin. 
Scarcely had we time to express our surprise at the uninviting 
aspect of the country before the rocky ledges and stunted vegeta- 
tion gave way to scenes of fertility and beauty— which continued 
without interruption during the day. Endless fields, some yellow 
with ripening rice, some white with the strewed leaves of the 
poppy, and some green with growing wheat, millet, and other 
cereals, alternate with orchards of bananas, tamarinds, and man- 
goes — the latter trees just now blooming and filling the air with 
a perfume sweet as that of the acacia. The plantations are divided 
by hedges of richly-flowering cactus. In other fields are large 
herds of cattle, and goats, and flocks of sheep, all fat and sleek, and 
ranging under cocoa-nut trees, scattered through the landscape 
like the oaks in Kentucky and California. The palma-Christi, a 
hardy, graceful shrub, needing little irrigation, grows luxuriantly. 
The flower-stalk of the " century-plant " has already reached the 
height of ten feet, and is preparing to spread its gorgeous petals in 
May. As we approached, we saw, in the midst of this luxuriance, 
which surpasses that of the prairies of Java, winding rows of wil- 
lows, and occasionally a mast towering over them. Another curve 
revealed to us the Ganges. 

The groups of slender men and children whom we passed by 
the roadside and in the fields were gayly and gracefully attired. 
So also were the few women whom we saw. They had a great 
profusion of silver ornaments, ear-rings, nose-rings, bracelets and 
bangles. All Nature seemed to feel new animation and display 
fresh beauty in the presence of the Ganges. Green parrots with 
yellow-and-red heads perch on the telegraph-wires', as swallows and 
martins do in our own country ; flocks of flamingoes make a rose- 
ate cloud as they fly over our heads ; the solemn stork and the 
stately adjutant march in regiments through the copses and pre- 
serves around us. 

We made one stop, during the day, at Patna. It is a large and 



374 BRITISH INDIA. 

an old Hindoo city, memorable in the history of British conquest 
as the scene of the perfidious covenant of the " Three Seals ; " that 
infamous transaction which aroused the people of England from 
their criminal lethargy to a contemplation of the atrocities practised 
by the East India Company. "While there, we made a survey of 
the eighteen cars which constituted our rail way -train. Only one 
of these was devoted to Europeans, the others were fully freighted, 
with natives ; never less' than thirty, sometimes fifty, crowded into 
a car. We met there our countryman Mr. Eldridge, who was just 
returning to Calcutta from a famous tiger-hunt in the north, in 
which he shot a tiger which had already laid hold of the haunch of 
the elephant he was riding. Patna, like all the towns and villages 
on our road, shows a division of the population between the faith 
of the Bramins and that of the Arabian prophet. The Hindoo 
temple, although it has a greater number of worshippers, is always 
eclipsed in magnificence by the mosque. 

The government officer, charged with the superintendence of 
the opium-production, called upon us at Patna. The opium-poppy 
bears a small white flower instead of the large bright petals known 
in our gardens. The manufacture is simple : early in the morning, 
an attendant (usually a woman) goes through the poppy-field, strik- 
ing each capsule with an instrument of many blades like a cupping- 
knife — the milky-juice exudes, dries, and blackens, under the burn- 
ing heat of the sun ; it is gathered in the evening by scraping the 
plant with a knife. It is already opium. The narcotic strength 
of the juice varies in different plants — owing to a difference in 
the vigor of the plant, or to the circumstances favorable or 
unfavorable to the extraction of the juice. Some plants yield 
only fifty per cent, of the drug ; others, eighty or ninety per cent. 
The weak and the strong products are mixed so as to obtain a uni- 
form strength of seventy-five per cent. The liquid which remains 
after the* mixture is made is again exposed to the sun. When the 
mass, thus mixed, has obtained a consistency for manipulation, it is 
divided into small portions, each of which is enclosed in a single 
mango-leaf. It is then rolled by hand until the leaf is entirely in- 
corporated into the mass, and the opium comes out dry in the 



MAHARAJAH OF BENARES. 



375 



shape of a round ball. One acre of poppy yields five pounds of the 
opium of commerce. 

We saw indigo-fields on every side, but the season for the culti- 
vation of that plant is past. 

Arriving at the station, Mogul Serai, on the south bank of the 
Ganges, we were met by the government commissioner of the dis- 
trict of Benares. He was charged by the Maharajah of Benares to 




MAHARAJAH OF BENAKES. 



invite us to an entertainment on the river in honor of the festival 
called "the Holy," which, after having been continued for several 
days, was to come to a close that night. A continuous railroad- 
journey of twenty-two hours, fatiguing everywhere, is doubly 
severe here ; but how could we decline a compliment from so high 
a native source, or how forego an occasion so novel and interesting 
as a night on the Ganges ? Two officers of the prince's household, 
bearing silver maces six feet long, with twenty servants in scarlet 

and white, met us on the river-bank and placed us in cushioned 
29 



376 BRITISH INDIA. 

chairs, under a gay canopy, on the deck of a graceful yacht. We 
floated leisurely downward with the current. The first part of the 
voyage had no special interest. The night was dark, and the dim 
lights around us gave us only spectral glimpses of the terraced 
banks. When, however, we had advanced a mile, we saw, on our 
right, at the river's edge, the blazing, crackling flames of seeming 
bonfires. The portion of the banks thus illuminated seemed to 
rise to the height of a hundred feet, and were thickly crowded with 
massive structures ; and, over all these, the gleaming dome and 
minarets of Aurengzebe, the great mosque of the city. What was 
our surprise to find that the fires, which we had supposed kindled 
for a temporary illumination, were funeral-fires ! Ghauts are built 
on the banks for the sole purpose of cremation. The spectacle 
turned our thoughts, for the moment, upon the strange process of 
disposing of the remains of the dead. "What," we inquired, "is 
done with the ashes which remain from the fires ? " " They scatter 
them on the bosom of the sacred river." 

At this point we entered a crowd of brilliantly-illuminated and 
gayly-decorated barges, so dense that it was not without difficulty 
that we made our way through it to the station assigned us, near 
the maharajah's barge, from which a calcium-light flashed an in- 
tense and dazzling splendor over the entire city. On either side of 
this magnificent barge was another one, equally gorgeous ; the one 
containing the Maharajah of Visianagram, the other, the Maharajah 
of Putteeala. These dignitaries were guests. The barges of the 
three princes were lashed together, and a grand Oriental pavilion 
extended over them. All the optical effect that can be obtained 
by fanciful naval designs, brilliant light, and variegated drapery, 
by moving crowds and splendid costumes, reflected by mirrors, 
crystals, and gold, was produced here ; while the senses were rav- 
ished by the perfume of burning incense and tropical flowers. 
Though dazzled by cross-lights, and bewildered by the indescriba- 
ble glitter, we passed, under safe guidance, from our own barge to 
that of the Maharajah of Benares. Under the same conduct we 
passed through successive chambers, each varying in enchantment 
from the others, until we reached the curtained and festooned cen- 



GLORY HALLELUJAH. 



377 



tral saloon, appropriated to guests. Here rose-water and neroli 
gushed over us from silver and crystal fountains ; champagne and 
sherbets sparkled in golden vases ; buffets groaned with the weight 
of fruits, confectionery, and ices ; while beautiful nautch girls in 
gauzy attire performed their most sacred and celebrated songs and 
dances to their strange music. 

It may be imagined we were filled with emotion, when, in an 
interval of this elaborate Asiatic exhibition, the solemn measure of 
" Glory Hallelujah " from a full European orchestra burst upon 
our ears. The performance of this great marching-anthem of the 
Union army in the late war was a thoughtful recognition, on the 
part of the maharajah, of Mr. Seward's presence. We took leave 
of our princely entertainers at twelve o'clock, leaving the pageant 
of the Ganges to go on during the whole night for the enjoyment 
of those who, unlike ourselves, had strength enough to endure it. 



m 




NAUTCII GIELS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BENARES. 

The Sacred City of the Hindoos. — The Cradle of Buddhism. — Sarnath. — Eemarkable 
Towers. — The Holy River. — The Ghauts. — Singular Architecture. — The Mosques 
and their Minarets. — A Picturesque Scene on the River-Bank. — Siva and Doorga. — 
Manufacture of Idols. — Kincob. — Magnificence of Benares. 

March 16th. — Our experience here in the sacred city of the 
Hindoos is like that of the visitor at Jerusalem. There he expects 
to find most prominent the monuments of the Jews. Here we 
expect to find most prominent the monuments of the Hindoos. At 
Jerusalem, the monument which first attracts attention is not the 
Temple of Solomon, but the Mosque of Omar ; and here, the object 
which first attracts our attention is not a temple of Vishnu, but, 
Sarnath, a suburb of the city, the cradle of Buddhism. Buddha, 
according to the traditions, was a prince. He renounced royal 
state, wealth, family, friends, every thing, and repaired to Sarnath. 
Here in seclusion, and in the practice of severest asceticism, he con- 
tinued through five years ; and it resulted in his conviction that he 
had become perfectly incarnate of the Supreme God ; perfectly puri- 
fied ; the delegated savior of his nation and of mankind. Here, 
his teachings began nearly twenty-four hundred years ago ; hence, 
according to the faith of his disciples, the light of divine truth, 
which he dispenses, has radiated through the East, until it has ex- 
erted its saving influence over one-fourth of the human race, and it 
is to continue to radiate until it shall pervade the earth. But the 
fortunes of Buddhism in the res-ion where it originated have not 



THE BUDDHIST TOWEE. 



379 



been unlike those of Christianity. While the Christian religion 
is extended to the ends of the earth, a foreign and hated worship 
prevails in Palestine. So, while Buddha remains incarnate, not in 
Sarnath, but in Thibet, and thence dispenses the divine truth 
throughout the vast regions of Tartary, China and Japan, Ceylon 
and the Oriental Archipelago, his system has scarcely a foothold in 
the province where it originated. Sarnath is eight miles distant 
from Benares. The large plain, strewed with ruins, is the resort 



Oil? 




-"■:"- V ''■■-';f; : - : -SJM : i 



GREAT BUDDHIST TOWER AT SARNATU. 



of innumerable bands of pilgrims, who cover its broken shrines 
with garlands, and bedew its sands with tears. We tried, quite 
ineffectually, to learn the history of the only two monuments which 
retain something of their ancient shape and original proportions. 
One of these is a conical tower, which rises in the centre of a well- 
defined area, two-thirds of a mile in circuit. The tower has a 
circumference of ninety-two feet at the base, and rises to a height 
of one hundred and ten feet. What is extraordinary is, that this 



380 



BRITISH INDIA. 



vast tower is solid, without chambers or internal passages, except a 
low, subterranean one. It has a basement-story, twenty feet high, 
of solid brick, ten feet of which is below the level of the plain. 
Upon this basement is a story, forty feet high, of chiselled Chunar 
stone. With the exception of the five upper layers, this story is a 
solid mass, each individual block being fastened to the one adjoin- 
ing it by iron clamps. The part of the tower which is above the 
stone story, last mentioned, is built entirely of large bricks. Origi- 
nally, it had a veneering or outer covering, but it is difficult to 
ascertain whether it was of stone, stucco, or cement. The apex of 
the structure, ten feet in diameter, bears some traces of a statue 
surmounted by an umbrella. The large stone story has eight pro- 
jecting faces, divided from each other by a panel fifteen feet wide. 
Each projecting face has a large, deep niche, from which some life- 




CABVING ON BODDIIIST TOWER AT 8ARNATH. 



size statue has long since disappeared. Imagination replaces these 
with the figure of Buddha and his disciples, as we saw them so 
often in China and Japan, with hands raised before their breasts, 



BENARES BY DAYLIGHT. 381 

heads bent forward, and gazing at the soles of their feet. Several 
of these projecting faces are finely ornamented with wreaths of 
lotus — sometimes the plant winds as a vine with birds and dimin- 
utive human figures resting on its tendrils. In some places, it 
shows the tender leaf and bud ; in others, the open flower of the 
lotus. The carving of some of these wreaths is unfinished — an in- 
dication that the great structure was never completed. We con- 
cluded that this curious tower was projected and raised as a monu- 
ment of Buddha's reform, but abandoned before completion, when 
the religion was expelled from the country. We have alluded to 
another ruin — this is a solid, circular brick mound, seventy-four 
feet high, with an octagonal cupola twenty-four feet high. The 
cupola has its history, but not the mound. The former bears an 
inscription which recites that the sovereign of the country as- 
cended the mound in the year 51. 

March 17th. — We have to-day viewed Benares, not, as on our 
first night, under an artificial illumination, but under the light of 
an equinoctial sun. We passed down the river in the same yacht 
which floated us at the grand festival. 

Long before John baptized in the Jordan, the Asiatics had con- 
ceived the beautiful idea that certain rivers are holy, and that their 
waters have the power of " cleansing from all sin." The Ganges 
is, as it always has been, that river of the Hindoos. They must 
come hither as pilgrims from the most distant regions, at least once 
in a lifetime, and even once a year, if they can. They come 
here, moreover, if they can, to die ; because, to die in the holy city, 
secures a direct entrance into paradise. Native princes, successful 
baboos, and rich zemindars, please the Bramin priests and the peo- 
ple, and think also that they please the gods, by erecting majestic 
temples and buildings, costly marble ghauts for the use of the pil- 
grims as well as burning ghauts. To reach these ghauts, the high, 
steep banks of the river, for miles in length, are terraced with per- 
fect stone steps. The temples rise to the height of five, six, seven, 
eight, nine stories. They are built of marble and freestone, 
pierced with windows of every conceivable graceful shape, and are 



3S2 BRITISH INDIA. 

extravagantly ornamented with colonnades, corridors, balconies, 
niches, large and small domes, towers, pavilions, and pinnacles, 
which are set off with gilding and bright colors. The mosque, 
with its tapering minarets, occasionally interjected among the tem- 
ples, lends a pleasing relief to the Hindoo architecture, while its 
severe form and outlines seem to reprove the prolific imagination 
of the Hindoos. A highly-picturesque scene presented itself on the 
river-bank. Citizens, pilgrims, men, women, and children — singly, 
in groups, and in throngs — are ascending and descending the stair- 
cases, bearing on their heads bronze urns and vases, large and 
small, of forms as graceful as the Etruscan. Even the stately ele- 
phant seems to have adopted the mystic faith, for we saw him many 
times walk down the staircase, which had been nicely adapted to 
the human footstep, fill his trunk, and solemnly return. Pilgrims 
were plunging into the water from platforms and boats and barges 
of fanciful construction, some in the shape of peacocks, swans, and 
fishes. All the devotees dress in snow-white robes as they leave 
the water, to give effect to the idea that immersion purifies. The 
funeral-fires of the previous night are still blazing. How can they 
be extinguished? All that are in the city must die, and all that 
die are brought here. Having passed the entire river-front in the 
yacht, we dismissed it and returned through the streets of the city. 
They are close and narrow, but well paved, and, compared with the 
Chinese cities, excepting Canton, they are clean. The chief temple 
is that of Siva, the representative of the principle of destruction 
and reproduction. The dome and the towers are of burnished 
gold. Siva is the same round, black stone set in the floor as at 
Calcutta. Far greater reverence is paid to him here. Access and 
egress are made almost impossible by the multitude of pilgrims and 
votaries, who come into the temples laden with perfumes, fruits, 
flowers, and urns of holy water. Priests receive these oblations 
and appropriate them as perquisites, nor did the holy men disdain 
to receive some bright silver rupees from our unworthy and pro- 
fane hands. Three small, gentle, and very pretty sacred white 
cows, with wreaths of orange-flowers and roses around their necks, 
wander at pleasure in the holiest recesses of the temple, among 



KINCOB BROCADE. 383 

the worshippers, who feed them with rose-leaves and lotus- 
flowers. 

But what a poor apology for human devotion is that of Siva 
compared with the exhibition of that sentiment which is presented 
to Doorga ! At the temple of the former it is a black stone that is 
honored ; at that of the Doorga it is the living, moving animal crea- 
tion, the monkey. Moreover, these monkeys seem to appreciate 
their celestial privileges and honors. They are of all sorts and 
sizes. We saw them by the thousand gambolling in the courts, 
"racing and chasing" through the corridors, and mischievously 
laughing upon the worshippers below from columns and cornices, 
from balustrades and balconies. 

Edifices of all sorts, even the dwelling-houses, are stupendous 
and massive. The basements are used for mechanics and other 
tenants of low degree. The upper stories, guarded by bars and 
screens, are the gorgeous zenanas ; fit family dwellings for a people 
who, unanimously thinking that the virtue of woman can only be 
secured by her imprisonment, magnanimously try to relieve that 
durance by extravagant indulgences of luxury and ostentation. 
The shops are seldom more than eight feet square. The articles 
made are chiefly ornaments and religious tokens. As, in ancient 
Ephesus, the people principally supported themselves by making 
images of Diana, so the people of Benares largely support them- 
selves by the manufacture of idols — idols great, idols small, idols 
white, idols black, idols red, idols yellow, idols of bronze, iron, 
wood, stone, porcelain, and glass. 

We visited the warehouse of the Tcincob — a brocade, the most 
exquisite of fibrous fabrics ; its materials, the richest of silk and 
the purest of gold, worn by the native princes, baboos, and zemin- 
dars, woven in patterns five yards long and one yard wide. A 
pattern never costs less than three hundred dollars. The merchant 
displays in a book the names of a few English ladies as customers, 
but their purchases were very small. Is it not strange that the na- 
tive rulers of India, after disasters which have deprived them of 
their independence and universally impoverished if not ruined them, 
continue to dress in costumes which no Western state of wealth 



384: 



BRITISH INDIA. 



can command ? The merchant in the East, everywhere, is amiable 
and polite. The vendor of kincob received ns, who merely came 
to look at his wares, with bouquets and garlands when we came, and 
showered us with rose-water when we departed. 

Superstition counts the population of Benares by the million, 
and its sacred edifices by the thousand. The real population is one 
hundred and fifty thousand, and it contains between three and four 
hundred temples. So much of the history of Benares as we have 
not related was sublimely spoken by Burke in his account of the 
cruelty of Warren Hastings to the Maharajah Cheyte Sing, ances- 
tor of our host. What we have left unsaid of the incomparable 
magnificence of the city is told by Macaulay in his essay on War- 
ren Hastings. 



*k tilvm 




TEMPLES AT BENARES. 




QUEEN'S COLLEGE. BENA.RES. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOYS, AND AGRA. 

Allahabad, the City of God. — Cawnpore. — Lucknow, the Capital of Oude. — Extent of the 
Country. — Arrival at Agra. — A Marvellous Monument of Arms, Arts, and Empire. — 
Akbar the Great. — His Vast Architectural Works. — The Pearl Mosque. — Euttehpore 
Sikra.— Its Great Wall.— The Tomb of Sheik Selim Chishti.— The Panch Mahal.— Ak- 
bar' s Tomb. — His Wealth. — His Horses and his Elephants. — Weighing his Presents. 

March lSth. — Allahabad (the city of God), once a Mohamme 
dan town, has now relapsed to the religion of Bramah. It standa 
on the Jumna, just above its confluence with the Ganges. It de- 
rives its present importance from its being the place of junction for 
the railroads of Northern India with the main eastern and western 
line, which connects Bombay and Calcutta. The railroad bridge 
across the Jumna is celebrated throughout the world. Allahabad 
is a large military station, and the capital of the northwestern 
provinces. It has a public garden, which receives a picturesque 
effect from two massive Mohammedan tombs or imambarras. 

We were met at the station, at ten o'clock last night, by 

an officer, and conducted to Government House, the residence 

of the governor, Sir William Muir. This spacious and elegant 

structure was illuminated for a concert'. Hospitality attended 

with less ostentation, or a more sympathetic kindness, we have 

never known. Sir William and Lady Muir not only believe in 

works of education, but they are patrons of the " Woman's Union 

Society of America." A sudden indisposition prevented Mr. 

Seward's attendance at a dinner made for him by the United 
30 J 



■■ 



386 



BRITISH INDIA. 



Military and Civil Service Club of the Northwestern Provinces, 
and the zealous American missionaries residing here. 

Cawnpore, March 20th. — Lady Muir accompanied us to our 
car at one o'clock this morning. We rode through ripening wheat- 
fields, and reached the town on the south side of the Ganges at 
sunrise. We write these notes while crossing that river on a pon- 
toon bridge, a form especially adapted to rivers like this, which are 
subject to immense freshets and floods. 

Luchiow, March 21st. — We came forty miles to this city, the 
capital of the once independent but now nominal kingdom of 
Oude, over a branch of the East India Railway, and through the 
valley of the Goomty, a tributary of the Ganges. The soil, often 
and severely swept by deluges, is poor. We are guests here of 
General Barrow, now Commissioner (that is to say, Lieutenant- 
Governor) of Oude. With an area half as large as that of the State 
of New York, Oude has a population of three millions. Its ancient 




•" '■'■'7,1 






~y#«"'- 



RESIDENCY AT LUCKKOW. 



LUCKNOW AND AGRA. 387 

Mogul capital, which in our maps bears the name of Oude, is now 
called Fyzabad. Lucknow has enjoyed that distinction one hun- 
dred and twenty years, and now contains half a million of inhab- 
itants. It is doubtless true that Great Britain owes her empire in 
India more to the dissension of its native rulers than to the force 
of arms. We have already seen enough of the country to know 
that the causes of those dissensions were, like the divisions among; 
our aboriginal tribes, deep and lasting. The Bramin religion, 
where it was universal, had no effect to produce unity among the 
tribal communities dispersed over vast territory, and rendered 
irreconcilable by diversity of climate, race, and language. The 
Tartars or Scythians, border nations on the North, continually in- 
truded, producing alienation between the Hindoo communities, 
while the conquering Mohammedans, by an arrogant rule, op- 
pressed and crushed the natives. 

Agra, March 22d. — Leaving the Ganges at Cawnpore, we came, 
by the East India Railway, to Toonclla junction, and thence, over a 
branch, to Agra, on the Jumna, one hundred and thirty miles north- 
west from Allahabad. Some hills, which we crossed, are without 
irrigation and barren, but the country generally wears the same as- 
pect as the plain of the Ganges. The irrigated wheat-fields yield 
sixteen bushels to the acre. The population is four hundred to a 
square mile. They have no modern agricultural implements or 
machinery. Deficient in industry as in energy, they sit on the 
ground when they use the sickle. That they are humane is seen in 
the large privileges they yield to the gleaners. 

When we came to Benares, the gentleman who met us there 
said, "We are glad that you came here before going to Agra.'' 
"You do well," said General Barrow, "to see Lucknow before 
going to Agra." Both were right. 

Benares, although unique and grand, now seems to us as 
merely an embodiment of an inactive sentiment of mystic devo- 
tion. Lucknow is the fanciful capital of an ephemeral kingdom. 
Agra, though ruined, is a marvellous monument of arms, arts, 
and empire. During a period of one hundred and fifty years, and 



388 BRITISH INDIA. 

until the reign of Akbar, the successors of Tamerlane made little 
progress in consolidating their empire in India. That monarch, 
the greatest, wisest, and best of them all, enlarged it from three 
provinces to fifteen, and founded the capital at Agra, which soon 
grew into a magnificent city of half a million. His successors, per- 
haps wisely, perhaps necessarily, removed the Mogul throne to 
Delhi ; and Agra, experiencing no subsequent renovation in the 
casualties of war and conquest, has shrunk into a provincial town 
of a quarter of its former population. There are three monuments 
here and in the vicinity which are the work of Akbar : the fort of 
Agra, Futtehpore Sikra, and Secundra. These, together with the 
famous Taj-Mahal, constitute the traveller's study here. The fort, 
which has an ample moat and drawbridge, is a mile and a half in 
circuit, built entirely of red sandstone, and measures, from the foun- 
dation to the embrasured battlements, seventy-two feet. It seems 
to have been designed quite as much for civil use as for defence. 
It now contains a British arsenal. Its area was filled with palatial 
structures, of which two remain in a state of imperfect preservation, 
the Imperial Palace and the Pearl Mosque. The substructions of 
the palace are red sandstone, but nearly all of its porticos, courts, 
corridors, chambers, and pavilions, are of polished white marble. 
The walls of the balcony, which overhangs the Jumna, are finely 
inlaid inside and outside with mosaics, which combine jasper, agate, 
carnelian, bloodstone, lapis-lazuli, and malachite. The balcony is 
guarded with balustrades of delicate marble fretwork. The apart- 
ments of the zenana are extensive and of exquisite finish. They 
look down upon what was once a garden. The fountains, which 
threw fanciful jets into bathing-rooms, are broken up, but the 
vaulted roofs of marble tracery still remain filled with the thou- 
sands of miniature prismatic mirrors. The Divan, in Oriental 
speech called the " Judgment-seat of Akbar," is a grand open por- 
tico, with Saracenic roof and arches, resting on three rows of col- 
umns. In its centre is a marble throne, inlaid, like the pavilion 
which covers it, with mosaic wreaths and texts from the Koran, 
composed of jasper and carnelian. A tablet, in the wall behind 
the throne, bears the inscription "Ain Akbaree" (the Laws of 




EXTERIOR OF THE FORT. 



THE PEARL MOSQUE. 



389 



Akbar). A Persian poet has written beneath it, in his own lan- 
guage, " The Knler of the World." 

The Motee Musjid, poetically Pearl Mosque, and the pearl of 
all mosques, consists of a single corridor of polished white marble, 
with three rows of Saracenic pillars and arches, which support a 
marble dome, encircled with gilded minarets. The dimensions are 




INLAID SC1IEEN, TOMB OF MINA BEGUM, AGEA. 



small, but the symmetry is perfect, while a severe simplicity ex- 
cludes equally blemish, fault, or excess. Less fortunate in official 
acquaintance here than elsewhere, we were unable to gain admit- 
tance to the storehouse in the arsenal, in which are preserved the 
famous sandal-wood gates which Sultan Mahmoud of Ghuznee 
carried away from the ancient ecclesiastical city of Somnath to 



390 BRITISH INDIA. 

Afghanistan, eight hundred years ago, and which the British 
brought back in 1842, to please their Hindoo subjects. 

March 23d. — Futtehpore Sikra is twenty-two miles west of 
Agra. Desirous to avoid travel under a mid-day heat, we con- 
tracted yesterday, with the landlord, for a carriage and two horses, 
to leave the hotel at five o'clock this morning, with relays on the 
road. By dint of labor, we awakened the landlord, servants, and 
drivers, and got off at half-past six, with only one horse, and no 
provision for a relay. The smooth road over a level plain exhibits 
on all sides the ruins of mosques and palaces of the once great 
capital. As this was practically our first private excursion in the 
country, we greatly enjoyed the novel rural scenes it presented. 
Here was the primitive Hindoo well or fountain by the roadside, 
from which veiled maidens were filling their polished brazen urns. 
We saw even the youthful Jacob, helping a bashful Rachel to poise 
a pitcher on her head. The dress of the people is more striking, 
both in fashion and color, than we have before seen. The crow is 
here in force as everywhere, but is outnumbered by the ring-dove. 
Adjutants and flamingos marshalled us through avenues of flower- 
ing acacias and mangos. Oxen, asses, and camels, in trains and 
loaded with cotton, obstructed the way. 

Futtehpore Sikra was an imperial suburb built by Akbar, and 
was six miles in circumference. He enclosed the whole by a high 
embrasured wall of red sandstone. This fortification, with its lofty 
Saracenic gate, remains as if in mockery, protecting the now deso- 
lated theatre of imperial pomp and recreation. Our one jaded 
beast gave out when we reached this gate. A native guide met us 
there, and we found his strong arm useful in climbing the rocky 
ledge under a burning sun. He led us, by a circuitous path over 
broken columns and fallen arches, into a court covered with masses 
of debris. Before us rose a terrace, which we were to ascend by 
one hundred stone steps. This staircase was crowned by a Sara- 
cenic gate-way one hundred and twenty feet high. Ascending the 
easy and yet unbroken stairway, we passed under the lofty arch, 
which invites the pilgrim of every land to the tomb of Sheik 



A SARACENIC GATE. 



391 



Selim Chishti, the religious monitor of Akbar. Here we rested a 
moment to examine the stupendous open doors, which, though fur- 
rowed by the storms of three hundred years, are still almost literally 




SARACENIC GATE. 



covered with gilded horseshoes. The soubahdars of the empire in 
their pride took them from the hoofs of favorite steeds, and affixed 
them on the gates in token of fealty to Akbar. Passing from the 
gate, we stood in a court four hundred feet square, closely paved 
with dark-red hewn sandstone. On the several sides of the court 
is a corridor fifty feet wide, with a roof resting on pillars of red 
sandstone fifty feet high. A central fountain lends a peculiar grace 
to the court. The tomb of the sheik is beyond the fountain, op- 
posite to the great portal, and is surmounted by a lofty, triple- 



392 BRITISH INDIA. 

domed mosque of white marble. The pedestal or platform is of 
jasper. The sarcophagus resting on it has a canopy six feet high, 
and both are of unmixed mother-of-pearl. The whole structure is 
protected on all sides by a white marble screen, composed of panels, 
eight feet square, of open filagree work, inlaid with carnelian. It 
detracts somewhat from the character of Sheik Selim Chishti for 
ascetic virtue, as well as from the character of Akbar for munifi- 
cence, that this gorgeous tomb was built with the private assets of 
the saint himself, at a cost of nearly two million dollars. We 
climbed the roof of the corridor and Jooked down on a mass and 
medley of ruins, bounded only by the outer wall. The desolation 
seemed complete, except that here and there we distinguished a 
pavilion not entirely dilapidated, a pointed arch, a monument or a 
pinnacle, which maintains its solitary position in defiance of time. 
We now repaired to the palace in which Akbar resided. It might 
with no great expense be restored. It is not one compact structure, 
but consists of many edifices, some quite distant from the others. 

Moved by a tradition which prevails here that Akbar had a 
Christian wife, brought from Constantinople, we explored a suite 
of apartments which she is said to have occupied, expecting to find 
relics of her piety and devotion. But we had no more success here 
than in our inquiries for " Jessie Brown " at Lucknow. There 
still remain in these sumptuous apartments some fine frescos, the 
work evidently of Persian artists— while the walls and ceilings ex- 
hibit a wonderful elaboration of sculpture. 

It is impossible now to obtain a correct idea of the uses of the 
different corridors, courts, pavilions, and gate-ways which intervene 
between the principal structures of the palace. One of these is 
very curious, the Panch Mahal. It consists of five pavilions, each 
of which is supported by carved pillars. The several pavilions are 
in stories or stages, one above another, making the form of a 
pyramid. Another pavilion has a large suite of apartments ar- 
ranged in a labyrinth. Tradition says that the ladies of the harem 
used this part of the building for the diversion of hide-and-seek. 
There is a square edifice, standing quite by itself, and covered by a 
dome : on the outside, it appears to be of two stories ; within, how- 




PILLAR IN AKBAR'S COUNCIL-CHAMBER.. 



THE PANCH MAHAL. 



59S 



ever, it is open from the floor to the ceiling of the dome. A 
massive carved pillar rises in the centre from the floor to the 
ceiling. Fifteen feet from the floor is a gallery with a balustrade 
encircling the chamber. From each corner of this gallery a plat- 
form, with a like balustrade, connects horizontally with a circular 
gallery built around the central column. 




PANCn MAHAL. 



Akbar was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth. They assure us 
that he sat on the central platform and leaned against the column, 
which supports it, while he listened to the instructions in science,, 
morals, and religion, of sages and saints whom he had summoned 
from all the schools and. cloisters of the East, and who were arranged 
on the outer platform around him. The broad disk of the dial by 
which the Mogul monarch measured the hours remains. There is 
still in good preservation the place where Akbar stood while re- 



394 BRITISH INDIA. 

ceiving the homage of his subjects at his levees or durbars. ISTor 
is there wanting unequivocal evidence that the great man delighted 
in games of chance. An open square of sixty feet has a pavement, 
arranged as a chess-board, in blocks of black and white marble. 
Instead of ivory, bronze, or wooden chess-men, the contending 
kings, queens, knights, bishops, castles, and pawns, were beautiful 
slave-women, who moved as directed by the monarch or his oppo- 
nent. They add further that the performers themselves were the 
stake for which the game was played. A building known as the 
palace of Beerbal was assigned by Akbar to his favorite prime- 
minister. It remains in fine preservation, and our architects and 
artists might study to advantage its classic design and elaborate 
sculpture. If the ghost of the favorite is allowed to revisit the 
scene of his power, he might well exclaim, " To what base uses " 
has my palace Ci come at last ! " when he saw us, infidel republicans 
of the West, loitering, lunching, and lounging in his elegant cham- 
bers. "We pass without particular mention the so-called " Antelope 
Tower," one hundred feet high, studded with imitation elephants' 
tusks, as well as the triumphal arch, guarded by colored elephants. 
But we must not omit to record that, excepting the tomb, mosque, 
and other merely ornamental structures, the entire town of Fut- 
tehpore Sikra was built wholly of fine freestone; no baser 
material entered into the construction for the purpose of either 
foundation, column, wall, roof, or dome. 

We historically know that this palace was built in 1571, and 
that Akbar resided in it twelve years. We have no account of the 
period when its decay began, or how rapid has been its fall into 
neglect and ruin. 

March 24:th. — If a man desires that there shall be a monument 
to perpetuate his memory, he does wisely, in a worldly sense, if 
he builds it himself. Akbar's tomb at Secundra shows that he 
had this wisdom. He extended the Mogul Empire from the Indus 
to the Bay of Bengal. Historians rather indicate his wealth by 
anecdote than describe his habits of life. They tell us that his 
private hunting-stud, used also for war-purposes, consisted of five 



WEIGHING PEESENTS. 



395 



thousand elephants and ten thousand horses. We do not know 
whether he was the first to set the example which is said still to 
prevail among the princes of the East, of weighing his gratuities in 
gold against his own weight on festive occasions ; it is, however, 
certain, that this monarch on one such occasion weighed a gratuity 
in gold against his own person, a second gratuity in silver, and a 
third in perfumes. 





akbab's tomb at secundba. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SECUNDRA AND THE TAJ-MAHAL. 

The Tomb of Akbar. — Derivation of the Name of Secundra. — The Taj-Mahal, the Tomb 
of the Banoo Begum. — Description of the Taj. — The Tomb of King Cotton. — The 
Inferiority of Indian Cotton. — Mode of Packing it. 

The plain over which we drove, five miles to Secundra, shows 
some imambarras and other less pretentious Moorish tombs, all 
dilapidated or in ruins. The great imambarra, here called simply 
the tomb of Akbar, stands on a terrace of moderate elevation, in 
the centre of an immense garden, which overlooks the Jumna. 
The entrance to the garden is through a Saracenic gate- way, with a 
white marble minaret rising on either side, and towering high 
above the apex of the lofty arch. Besides a profusion of roses and 
other flowering shrubs, the garden makes a rich display of mango, 
orange, date, palm, perpul, and banyan trees. The perpul, with 
its branches bending in the wind and trailing on the ground, is 
emblematic of mourning in the East, as the willow is in the West. 
A series of oblong marble fountains, stretching down a terraced 
slope, filled with the lotus and other aquatic plants, divides into two 
parts the grand avenue which leads through the gate from the gar- 
den to the tomb. The imambarra covers a space of three hundred 
feet, upon a platform of white marble four hundred feet square. It 
has five stories, each upper story being of smaller dimensions than 
the one beneath it. The four lower stories are built of red sand- 
stone — the upper one, including floor, dome, and cupola, is of 



DERIVATION OF SECUNDRA. 397 

polished white marble. The exterior of the several stories, instead 
of having balustrades, is ornamented with pavilions, which, resting 
on graceful columns, terminate in gilded spires. Having reached 
the paved floor of the first story, we descended an inclined plane, 
into a spacious, oblong, arched vault, directly under the centre of 
the edifice. Its roof rests on polished marble columns, the spaces 
between which are filled with chiselled marble screens. A marble 
sarcophagus within this vault contains the ashes of Akbar. The 
covering of the sarcophagus is ornamented with flowering-vines, 
and on its lid is an Arabic inscription. It is a favorite piinciple 
in Oriental architecture, that each distinct part must have a rela- 
tive or corresponding part, called an answer. The principle is car- 
ried here to absurdity : there is a mock sarcophagus on the marble 
floor of the uppermost story, directly over the sarcophagus, wrought 
in precisely the same form as the one below. Its lid is covered 
with inscriptions, in raised letters, of the ninety names of God. 
This imambarra is, we doubt not, the most magnificent monument 
which ever was raised to the memory of a conqueror. In 1803, it 
served as a barrack for a regiment of dragoons, but the Government 
of British India has since that time taken special care to protect it 
equally from decay and desecration. Not a stone of the noble 
structure has been removed or displaced. 

We leave the tomb of the great Akbar with the single re- 
mark that the name of the place which contains it, Secunclra, is 
an Indian derivation from that of the first European invader of 
India, Alexander the Great. The name of that conqueror seems 
to have secured the same admiration in the East which in the 
"West has been so long accorded to that of Csesar. 

Although Akbar is distinguished for having built for the de- 
fence of his capital the unequalled fort of Agra, with its splendid 
palace and its beautiful Pearl Mosque, and although he converted 
the stony ledge of Futtehpore Sikra into an architectural vision for 
an illustration of his reign, and although he built for himself at 
Secundra a monument more admirable than that of Cheops, never- 
theless, it remained for a descendant to raise a monument more 
exquisite than any of these— a monument, indeed, which is admit- 



398 



BRITISH INDIA. 



ted by the whole world to be the most beautiful that the earth has 
ever beheld. 

An opinion prevails to some extent in the West that the Taj- 
Mahal is the tomb of Xourmahal, " the Light of the Harem," in 
Moore's " Lalla Kookh." But that is an error. " The Light of the 
.Harem," the young Eourmahal, was buried at Lahore. Shah 
Jehan, the son of Jehangeer, and grandson of Akbar, who built 
the Taj-Mahal, to be the tomb of his sultana, Banoo Begum, was 
a prince of magnificent tastes. He was also called to endure 
many trials and much suffering. History does not attempt to tell 
how the Banoo Begum, more than others of her sex, deserved the 




m Mim- 



Wm ! "* 




mmm 







great distinction which she attained. Poets in the East, in their 
imaginative dreamings, have tried to supply this shortcoming of his- 
tory. They describe her as beautiful, graceful, gentle, loving, and 



THE TAJ-MAHAL. 399 

faithful, but hundreds, thousands, and millions, who have been as 
lovable as she is thus described, have passed away without monu- 
ment, though they may have been neither " unwept, unhonored, nor 
unsung." Let the natural suggestion of our own hearts furnish 
the solution. Whatever else Banoo Begum may have been, or 
may have done, she was beautiful, she loved Shah Jehan devotedly, 
and he loved her more than all the world beside. Tradition says 
that she called her husband to her side in her last hours, and re- 
quired him to promise her two things : First, that he would not 
marry again ; and, second, that he would build her a beautiful tomb. 
"We reject the tradition, for we are unwilling to believe that a 
woman who could inspire such love as his could have doubted his 
fidelity, or have been concerned about her own interment. 

The Taj stands upon the centre of a terrace, within a walled 
garden of twenty-five acres, on the banks of the Jumna. At either 
end of the terrace is an edifice of massive sandstone, with a dome 
of the same material. Midway between these is the incomparable 
Taj. As you approach, through an outer paved and walled pre- 
cinct, the grand gate-way comes into view. It is a majestic Sara- 
cenic arch, eighty feet high, springing from two abutments of red 
sandstone, having white marble panels, which are completely 
covered with texts from the Koran, inlaid in black marble, and 
each being surmounted by a white-marble minaret. Coming under 
the arch, and looking through a long vista formed by rows of Ital- 
ian cypress-trees planted on either side of a series of crystal foun- 
tains, you see the Taj rising from an elevation of thirty feet above 
the terrace. The platform, in the middle of the terrace, is a square 
of four hundred feet, paved with white marble, and each corner 
bears an exquisite white-marble minaret, two hundred feet high. 
The Taj is a square structure of one hundred and fifty feet, reduced 
to an octagonal figure, with four principal faces, by having the cor- 
ners cut down. The four smaller faces are lower than the larger 
ones. The entire edifice is built of polished white marble. Its 
Oriental dome, first swelling into a globe, tapers upward into a 
spire which is surmounted by a golden crescent. Four lesser 
domes of the same matchless form crown the truncated facades. 



400 BRITISH INDIA. 

At the centre of eacli of the four wide sides or fronts is a porch, 
consisting of a single Saracenic arch, which rises from the pave- 
ment two-thirds of the height of the building. Between these 
great arches the wall is relieved by two lesser arches of the same 
form, one above the other, producing, at a distance, the appearance 
of windows. The whole Koran is written, by chapters, in flowing 
letters of delicately-inlaid black marble, over the carved pilasters, 
architraves, and arches. Entering the porch, opposite the great 
gate-way, you descend a gently-inclined plane, as in the tomb of 
Akbar, and reach a vaulted, white-marble chamber directly under 
the centre of the edifice. The light, admitted through the door by 
which you have entered, is collected and concentrated on the mar- 
ble sarcophagus of Banoo Begum. A similar though smaller sar- 
cophagus is placed in the shadow — it holds the dust of her lover- 
husband, Shah Jehan. Each of these tombs is of marble as pure as 
the purest of Carrara, the sultana's most elaborately inlaid with 
vines, interwoven with texts from the Koran, traced in blood- 
stone, agate, carnelian, lapis-lazuli, malachite, jasper, garnets, em- 
eralds, rubies, topaz, and sapphires. Ascending to the main floor 
of the edifice, over the vaulted chamber, you are in the centre of 
an octagonal temple, and look up into a dome of snowy marble, 
two hundred and sixty-two feet high. This interior, though of vast 
dimensions, has such delicate proportions, and such harmony of 
light, that you are not at all oppressed with a sense of grandeur or 
immensity, but only of a consciousness of exquisite, indescribable 
beauty. Although we stepped regularly, timidly, and lightly, yet 
our footsteps brought down deafening reverberations from the 
dome. Our conversation came back to us in a confusion of thun- 
ders, and a gentle whisper was repeated over and over again, like 
tones of music dying in the distance. On the rich mosaic floor, di- 
rectly above the real tomb, are the duplicate sarcophagi, and a flood 
of mellowed light, brought through a single aperture in the dome, 
streams over the answering memorial of the beautiful Begum. 
These simulated cenotaphs are ornamented, in the same manner as 
the real ones below, but more elaborately and more exquisitely. 
They are protected by an octagonal screen, eight feet high, of mar- 



THE TOMB OF KING- COTTON". 401 

ble lace-work, marvellously interwoven with stems, leaves, and 
flowers of the lotus and of the rose, all encircled with a waving 
wreath of graceful, tender, twining passion-flower, in mosaic of 
precious stones and gems. 

Man's chief subject of contemplation is his Creator, his Redeem- 
er, his Saviour. In action he balances between desire for power and 
love of freedom. He has attempted to express all these emotions 
in architecture. The Parthenon is his highest expression, in that 
form, of awe of the gods. St. Peter's speaks, with not less distinct- 
ness, his sentiment of religious devotion. The Pyramids tell his 
reverence for human grandeur. The Capitol, at "Washington, mani- 
fests his love of freedom. The Taj-Mahal pretends to utter no 
such lofty sentiments as these, but it speaks out, more naturally 
than all, the gentlest, sweetest sentiment of human nature — pure, 
spiritual love. A tale of love is written, an idyl is sung, a melody 
of the tender passion breathes through this pure marble and these 
precious jewels. The tomb of Banoo Begum, in architecture, like 
the apotheosis of Beatrice, in poetry, is without an original and 
without a copy. 

The Taj is a modern structure. It is a sad reflection that the 
name of the architect is already lost. Connoisseurs differ in opin- 
ion concerning the stylo. Some call it Italian ; others insist that it 
is Saracenic ; others pronounce it Persian. We incline to think it 
eclectic, a blending of the beautiful in each. 

March 25th. — From the tomb of the Mogul monarch of India, 
Akbar, we passed to the tomb of the pretended monarch of Ameri- 
ca, King Cotton. The failure, during our civil war, of the cotton- 
supply, which had before been derived from the United States, 
obliged the European nations to seek it elsewhere. Notable 
attempts to cultivate the staple were made in Italy, but without 
success. An effort -of the Yiceroy of Egypt was hardly more effect- 
ual. India promised better. Cotton was indigenous, and success- 
fully cultivated in the plains which divide the Indus from the 
Ganges. The importunate demand of the European markets 
stimulated the production there. Fortunes were made by specu- 



402 



BRITISH INDIA. 



lation in cotton almost as rapidly in Bombay as they were lost in 
New Orleans. Agra was the centre of the producing districts. 
At the end of the war, it became a grave question whether the 




COTT'.lK XEUCIIAXTS, AGFA. 



advantage which had thus been gained by India could be retained, 
or whether the great monopoly could be recovered by the United 
States. The change of the system there, from one of slave labor to 
free labor, worked to our prejudice, and doubts still remained, when 
we left home, concerning the solution of the problem. We have 
found that solution here. The producers now universally confess 
that the cotton is greatly inferior to the American fibre ; they con- 
fess, moreover, that the plant degenerates under the burning sun of 
India, although they use the seed imported from the United States. 
Again, the efforts to introduce improved machinery have failed. 
We examined one of the establishments in which cotton is prepared 
for the market. The process is very rude. The cotton is passed 
between a pair of wooden rollers which are moved by hand. This 
simple mechanism is found in every house, and is an exclusive 



PACKING COTTON. 



403 



occupation of women. The operation of packing is quite as rude : 
five men, with their feet, trample the cotton iuto a succession of 
square boxes, one above the other ; five other men hold the boxes 
in their places until the stack thus raised contains the complement 
of a bale. An iron screw is then let down through an upper floor 
upon the centre of the cotton-stack. This screw is worked by 
eighty other men. Each laborer ejaculates or groans with every 
push that he gives the lever, and this groaning, combined with the 
noise of their tread upon the floor, produces an indescribable and 
ludicrous confusion. This examination convinced us that Sir Rich- 
ard Temple did not misstate in the annual budget the decline of 
cotton-production. 





;#iif 



:■:< 









Tlir. TAJ, FKOM THE FOUNTAIN 



CHAPTEE X. 

DELHI, THE MOGUL CAPITAL. 

A Vivid Contrast to Agra. — Ludlow Castle. — Brief Sketch of Hindoo History. — The Per- 
sians. — The Greeks. — The Arabs. — Sultan Mahmoud. — The Mongols or Moguls. — 
Foundation of Delhi. — Successive Changes of Site. — The Kootub Minar. — A Singu- 
lar Iron Shaft. — The Mogul Tombs. — The Tomb of Jehanara. — The Jumna Masjid. — 
The Imperial Palace. — Farewell to Delhi. 

Ludlow Castle, Delhi, March 26th. — In crossing the Jumna, 
the citadel of Delhi seems to be directly over the terminus of the 
railroad-bridge, and gives a fine effect to the approach. As first 
seen, Delhi is a vivid contrast to Agra. Akbar wedded Agra, and 
died — like the Hindoo widow, she has faithfully mourned him in 
decline and poverty ever since. Delhi, until recently the capital 
of the Mogul dynasty, and since an important seat of British rule, 
is a fickle jade, who easily transferred her allegiance. "We entered 
by the Cashmere gate, and, driving over a broad plain, in which fine 
European buildings alternate with highly-cultivated gardens, we 
reached Ludlow Castle, where we are the guests of the civil com- 
missioner of the district, Colonel Young. 

The outside world ^derived its earliest knowledge of India from 
its neighbors, the Persians, who maintained a vigorous commerce 
with Greece in the time of Darius. They gave to the country its 
name of Hindostan, the land of the black men. There still remain 
in the Andaman Islands, and some other parts of India, tribes of 
savages, who are supposed to be derived from an aboriginal race 
which possessed the country before the Hindoos. However that 



HINDOO HISTORY. 405 

fact may be, the earliest history of Hinclostan represents the entire 
country from the Indus to the border of Burmah, and from the 
Himalayas to Cape Comorin, as inhabited by one people, pro- 
fessing the Bramin faith, although they must have been then 
divided into distinct tribes, having different dialects. It was, 
however, an isolated and unsocial nation, such as Japan and 
China since have been. 

Three hundred years before the Christian era, Alexander ex- 
tended his conquest across the Indus and to the banks of the Hy- 
daspes (the Sutlej) with the purpose of bringing isolated India into 
the family of Mediterranean nations. This great enterprise might 
doubtless have been achieved at that time, had it not been defeated 
by the refusal of the Macedonian army to go farther. His suc- 
cessors quickly lost the ground he had gained. The history of 
Hinclostan, since that period, is the story only of repetitions of 
attempts, like that of Alexander, for the conquest of the country, 
favored, like his, by a slow process of internal disintegration. The 
propagandism of Buddha, which occurred soon after the failure of 
the Greek conquest, convulsed the country, and, arraying its tribes 
and religious sects against each other, opened the way to a new 
invader. Mohammed was a religious reformer of a very different 
order from Buddha. The latter propagated by preaching, the 
former by the sword. In the reign of the Caliph Walid, about 
715 a. d., the Arabs invaded Hindostan from the sea, and con- 
quered Scinde and part of the Punjab, which they held for some 
years. But the Hindoos, rallying under the banner of their an- 
cient faith, expelled the Mussulman, though only with the conse- 
quence of provoking new invasions. Sultan Mahmoud advanced 
into the Punjab, in the eleventh century ; and his successors, con- 
quering the whole of Northern India, and establishing their capital 
at Delhi, extended their sway across the Jumna and the Ganges. 
These partial Mohammedan conquerors in the north encouraged 
a bolder leader of the same faith. In 1398, Tamerlane invaded 
the country, seized Delhi, and, with a war of terrific barbarity, 
established that great Mongol or Mogul Empire which Great Brit- 
ain in fact suppressed in 1803, but of which she permitted a 



406 BRITISH INDIA. 

shadow to stand until 1857. With the exception of Akbar's resi- 
dence at Agra, Delhi was the capital of the Mogul Empire until its 
dissolution. With successive changes of dynasty, the city has from 
time to time changed its place from one part of the plain to another. 
So it has happened that the Delhi of to-day is the last one of a 
dozen cities which have successively borne the same name, and 
enjoyed the honors of a capital. This modern Delhi dates from the 
time of Humayoon, the father of Akbar. 

Delhi, March 2Sth. — We drove yesterday eleven miles across 
the plain, seeing on all sides the palaces, mosques, and tombs, some 
still erect though abandoned, others in dilapidation, others mere 
debris, which mark the sites of the several capitals which have 
passed away. Among these relics, stands the Kootub Minar. It 
may, as claimed here, or may not be, the highest pillar in the world. 
We first saw it at a distance of seven miles, under a dim twilight, 
which, like moonlight, may have had the effect of increasing its 
apparent elevation. Approaching nearer, we found the column a 
circular fluted one of red sandstone, two hundred and thirty-eight 
feet high, forty-seven feet in diameter at the base, and divided into 
five stages or stories, the base of each story ornamented with a 
projecting gallery and balustrade. The heights of the successive 
stories are graduated in exact proportion to the contracting diam- 
eter of the column, the height of the lower story being ninety- 
four feet, while that of the upper is only twenty-two feet. As we 
looked up beneath this towering monument, standing so erect and 
alone in the broad field of desolation, it seemed to us that, like 
Memnon on the Nile, it might have a voice, and so might tell us 
a long history of heroic achievements, magnificent designs, and 
bitter disappointments, of which it has been a witness. 

The Dak is a government institution for the transportation of 
passengers and property. It consists of carts drawn either by 
horses or oxen, with changes every four miles. At each station is 
the " dak bungalow," in which the traveller, who carries his own 
provisions and bed, may take rest and refreshment. A pretty 
Hindoo temple, which stands under the shadow of the Kootub, has 



THE KOOTUB MINAR. 



407 



been restored from a state of dilapidation, and appropriated to that 
use. It served us pleasantly for our evening repast, and gave us 
airy lodgings for the night. This morning, we looked from its 
veranda upon the great, dark column, as it received and reflected 




THE KOOTUB MINAR. 



the rays of the rising sun. In this illumination, which left the base 
in deep shadow, the monument seemed even more perfect and 
loftier than it did on the night before. A closer observation, while 
it showed some new points of beauty, revealed also some defects. 
The fluting of the column differs at the several stories. In the 
first story the fluting is circular, in the second angular, in the third 
the circle and the angle alternate ; the fourth story is of white 
marble, encircled at the middle with a belt of brown sandstone ; the 



408 BRITISH INDIA. 

fifth story is of unmixed white marble. Underneath the magnifi- 
cent sculptured cornice which supports the gallery of each story, 
the column is boldly carved in Arabic, in texts from the Koran, and 
in part recitals of repairs and improvements made by different 
monarchs. A circular iron staircase conducts to the summit, where 
the visitor takes in at one view the Jumna, the Delhi of our time, 
and all the ruined Delhis for miles and miles around. How large 
must be the number of those who have trodden that lofty, spiral 
staircase, and how diverse must have been their reading of the 
lessons which that giddy height affords ! The recitals mentioned, 
as translated by General Cunningham, give us only this informa- 
tion : that the erection of the column was the work of several cen- 
turies ; that it was finished in 1236, one hundred and sixty years 
before Tamerlane, and in the reign of Shumsh-oodeen-Altumsh. 
We are profoundly grateful for this information, but it would have 
saved a world of conjecture and research if the writers of those in- 
scriptions had told us who designed and began the structure, and 
for what object. Was it built as it now stands alone, or was it an 
appurtenance to some temple, or palace, or mosque which has long 
since mingled with the earth % Was it, like the Tower of Babel, de- 
signed as a stairway to the heavens, or was it to be an observatory 
from which to measure the magnitude and the movements of the 
stars ? Is it a triumphal column, or is it a tomb % Parts of it have 
been blackened by the storm, and even deranged by the lightning 
and the earthquake. Nevertheless, it stands firmly, and may en- 
dure for many thousand years. Distant one or two hundred feet 
from the column are the dilapidated gates and walls of a spacious 
mosque. Some imagine the Kootub Miliar an adjunct of that 
mosque ; others controvert this position, while they maintain that 
the structure for which the Kootub was designed to be an orna- 
ment, though projected, was never built. 

There is a relic, not far from the Kootub Minar, of even greater 
antiquity, and more mysterious. It is a cylindrical iron shaft, six- 
teen inches thick, estimated by General Cunningham to be sixty 
feet long, and to weigh seventeen tons. Excavations, to the depth 
of twent} T -six feet, have failed to find its lower end, while its top is 



THE TOMB OF KUMAYOON. 409 

twenty-two feet above the surface. Tourists cannot safely assume 
to be archaeologists. The accomplished traveller Bayard Taylor 
says he learned at Delhi that an inscription on the shaft assigns 
it a date one century before the Christian era. If our guides 
translated correctly the same inscription for us, it was erected A. d. 
319. The surroundings of this monument are perplexing; it 
stands in the very centre of an immense dilapidated but not demol- 
ished Mohammedan caravanserai, palace, or mosque. The Sara- 
cenic arches of this ruin indicate, beyond all mistake, its Moham- 
medan character ; but, here comes the difficulty : all these fine 
Moorish arches rest on rudely-wrought, monolith granite columns, 
which are covered with carvings, and vines, and images of idols, 
and saints. Beyond a doubt these rough columns were raised in 
honor of the thirty-three thousand gods of the Hindoos. We rec- 
ognized, as we thought, not only those of the Braminical faith, but 
also some belonging to the reformed creed of Buddha. But we could 
not be certain of this, for the Mussulman iconoclast has treated 
them all as equally offending against the second command of Moses. 
He has battered and defaced them so effectually that they are no 
longer like unto " any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in 
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Take 
into consideration, now, that the cross of St. George waves over 
these ruins, and we have a grouping, in a circumscribed area, of the 
monuments of Braminical worship, Buddhist worship, Mohamme- 
dan worship, and Christian worship ; the several religions succeed- 
ing each other as conquerors, and all within the period of two 
thousand years. We drove, next, to a cemetery v which is compar- 
atively modern ; alighting here, we walked through several narrow 
aisles bordered by so many costly and beautiful marble cenotaphs 
that even the graveyard of Mogul monarchs became as monotonous, 
and the eulogistic Arabic inscriptions on them as tedious, as the 
" Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions, with Occasional 
Notes, by the Eev. Timothy Alden, A. M., in two vols., New York, 
1814." The tomb of Humayoon, however, deserves "special men- 
tion," not more on account of the great merit of that monarch than 

the magnificence of the monument. The factious rivalry of Hu- 

32 



410 BRITISH INDIA. 

mayoon's brothers invited an invasion from Afghanistan, in which, 
the Mogul emperor was completely overthrown and Humayoon driv- 
en into exile. Finding an asylum in Persia, he formed an alliance 
with the king of that country, who furnished Humayoon an army, 
with which he returned to Hindostan, resumed the throne of his 
ancestors, and transmitted it to his son, the great Akbar. If there 
were no Taj, nor tomb of Akbar, the mausoleum of Humayoon 
might perhaps be as much admired as those monuments are. It sur- 
passes each of them as well in vastness as in massiveness. Its white 
marble dome, resting on arcades of red sandstone, making a marked 
feature in the plain, is peculiarly beautiful. We turned our steps 
from the proud mausoleum to a tomb more rare, and of a very 
different design. Aurungzebe, whose name is rendered infamous 
by his cruelty, was a son of Shah Jehan. He seized his fathers 
throne, usurped his kingdom, imprisoned him, and, as some histori- 
ans write, deprived him of his eyes. His sister, ^Jehanara, refusing 
to enter the imperial court of the usurper, remained with her unfor- 
tunate father until his death. A monument, simple and beautiful 
as her own character, covers her remains. The inscription which 
it bears is said to have been written by herself. "We brushed 
away freshly-cut flowers to look upon it, all the time wondering 
who placed them there. These are the words which we read in 
Arabic : " Let no rich canopy rise over my grave ; the grass is the 
best covering for the poor in spirit, the humble, the ephemeral 
Jehanara, the disciple of the holy men of Cheest, the daughter of 
the Emperor Shah Jehan." We derived from this touching memo- 
rial an assurance that ages of superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism, 
cannot altogether extinguish womanly virtue, or the admiration of 
mankind for it. 

March 2$th. — Our sight-seeing, in India, is necessarily done in 
the early morning or in the evening; when the sun is very low in 
the horizon. Our record of it is made in the time which can be 
snatched from society or necessary rest. 

The Jumna Musjid derives imposing effect from its situation in 
the centre of an oblong area, on a rocky terrace, which extends 



THE IMPERIAL PALACE. 411 

from the Cashmere gate to the Delhi gate, and is approached by 
magnificent stone staircases on three sides — a site not unlike that 
of the Capitol at Washington. The Jumna Musjid is a mosque. 
two hundred feet by one hundred and twenty feet, surmounted by 
three elegant marble cupolas with gilded spires. At each end is a 
superb minaret, built in alternate lines of black and white marble. 
The pavement of the mosque is of white-marble slabs, each forty- 
two inches by eighteen inches, finished with an inlaid black-marble 
border. Each slab is a kneeling-place for a worshipper. Like the 
mosque in the citadel of Agra, the edifice is called the " Pearl of 
Mosques." We do not attempt to compare the two. Either is 
more beautiful than any religious edifice we have ever seen. The 
Jumna Musjid is, however, the more highly revered of the two. 
Its venerable custodian showed us relics of the greatest possible 
sanctity. Among them are a pair of shoes which were worn by the 
prophet, and one hair saved from his beard ! Both of these inesti- 
mable treasures are carefully preserved in antique glass cases. We 
cannot undertake to vouch for the genuineness of that hair, but we 
must confess that the shrivelled and rotten leather makes out a 
strong claim for the genuineness of the shoes. 

There is, however, a relic, the authenticity of which can hardly 
be disputed. It is a devotional autograph manuscript of Fatiina, 
the faithful and favorite daughter of Mohammed. 

The first accounts of the mutiny of '57 that went abroad attrib- 
uted it to a discontent on the part of the Hindoos. From inquiries 
here, we have no doubt that it was an insurrectionary attempt of 
the Mohammedans. Ever since its suppression, Government has 
forbidden public worship in the Jumna Musjid. 

Here, as at Agra, the Imperial Palace is within the walls of the 
citadel. It is in complete preservation, and is an additional monu- 
ment of the exquisite taste and munificence of Shah Jehan, the 
builder of the Taj. Its prominent parts are one greater and one 
lesser "audience-hall." Each of these is of polished white mar- 
ble, entirely open in front, and placed at such a height as to 
afford the emperor, sitting on the throne, not merely a view of 
the surrounding audience, but also a view of the procession of his 



412 BRITISH INDIA. 

vassals as they entered the great palace-gates, with all their gorge- 
ous displays of music, soldiers, camels, and elephants. A polished 
white-marble throne, in each audience-chamber, is raised on a dais, 
six or seven feet high, of the same material. A pure white-marble 
canopy, supported by delicate Saracenic pillars, lends this structure 
a peculiar grace. Both of these halls have been despoiled of the 
decorations which first aroused the attention of Europe to the mar- 
vellous splendor of the Mogul Empire. The solid silver plates of 
the great audience-chamber have been stripped from the ceiling, 
and sold in the market in London for one hundred and seventy 
thousand pounds sterling. The lesser chamber has been robbed of 
the famous " peacock-throne," in the construction of which Shah 
Jehan expended six million pounds sterling. The frescos of birds 
and flowers on the polished marble walls are now dim — certainly 
they must always have been a blemish. If, however, white marble 
and fresco are incongruous, it must be admitted -that white marble 
and yellow gold, arranged in just proportions, form the most effec- 
tive of all ornamental combinations. Such is the fretwork which 
adorns the capitals, cornices, and flutings of the columns and pilas- 
ters. The architect of the palace seems to have been enamoured 
of his own creation, for he wrote, on each angle of the lesser audi- 
ence-chamber, the words which Moore has made familiar to all the 
world in " Lalla Rookh : " 

"If there be an Elysium on earth, 
It is this, it is this." 

Let us drop mathematical lines and arithmetical measure- 
ments, and try to convey in another way an idea of the palace of 
Shah Jehan. Can any one conceive a nobler spectacle than an 
inauguration of a President of the United States, under the eastern 
portico of the Capitol? Does any one know any thing in the 
world more shabby than the broad staging of plank and scantling 
on which the august ceremony is performed ? The silver ceiling 
and the "peacock-throne" have been removed from the throne- 
room at Delhi. "We would rub off now the gilding and the fres- 
cos on the walls. Having thus reduced the magnificent room to 



ENGLISH KINDNESS. 413 

its original simplicity, we would commend it to the Congress of the 
United States as a model stage for the inauguration-ceremony. 
Bayard Taylor, more fortunate than we, saw the Mogul palace 
while it yet was the residence of the last of the successors of Akbar. 
The mutineers of '57, inflated with their first success, proclaimed 
the restoration of the empire. That stipendiary yielded to ambi- 
tious persuasion. He was quickly overthrown, stripped of allow- 
ances, state, and possessions ; and we find that his heirs, loyal to 
the British Government, are now content with the honor of show- 
ing us, as guides, the splendor of the halls and tombs of their 
ancestors. 

Delhi shares with Lahore the commerce of the western and 
northern provinces, Afghanistan, Cashmere, and Persia. It seems 
likely therefore to remain, as it is, a great and populous city. The 
streets are often rendered impassable by heterogeneous caravans. 
The shops contain fabrics, tissues, and jewelry, of exquisite richness, 
and adapted to every variety of Oriental taste. 

Our study of Delhi closed, to-day, with a visit to the heights to 
which the British army retired, when driven out of the palace of 
Shah Jehan, on the breaking out of the mutiny. They remained 
here six months, successfully resisting the surprises and sorties of 
the insurgents in the city — twenty times their number. At last, 
being reenforced, they became assailants, stormed the citadel, and 
recovered the capital. 

Here we leave our host, and the learned companion of our ex- 
plorations, Colonel Young. American travellers are apt to ima- 
gine that Englishmen whom they meet are cold, if not churlish. 
Nothing could be farther from this than our experience in India, 
and, in looking back through all that experience, we find no more 
agreeable remembrance than that of "Ludlow Castle," and of the. 
hearty welcome and courteous hospitality we received there. 



CHAPTER XL 

UMBALLA AND PUTTEEALA. 

Meerut, the Scene of the Outbreak of the Great Mutiny. — Hindoo Pilgrims.— First View 
of the Himalayas. — Invitations to Putteeala. — Journey thither. — The City of Put 
teeala. — Coaches or Elephants '? — Entrance into Putteeala. — A Magnificent Proces 
sion. — Our Palace. 

Urnballa, March 30th. — Leaving Delhi, yesterday morning, we 
recrossed the Jumna and its valley by a bridge and long causeway 
to the station of Gazeabad. Thence we made our way through a 
sea of golden wheat-fields, dotted with islands of blooming mango- 
trees — one hundred and fifty miles — to this place. We stopped at 
Meerut, a garrison-town, made memorable by being the scene of the 
outbreak of the mutiny. That great disaster left at Meerut no such 
painful traces or touching monuments as are seen at Cawnpore, 
Lucknow, and Delhi. 

The common roads parallel with the railroad, for a distance of 
twenty miles above Meerut, were thronged with travellers, chiefly 
men and children, of all castes and classes — save only the poor pari- 
ahs, each troop attended by musicians, their costumes diverse in 
form and color. The greater number were pedestrians, but others 
rode the native ponies, donkeys, camels, and elephants. A few 
showed a special pride as they came along in gayly-decorated carts 
drawn by clean white oxen decked with ribbons and garlands. 
The long processions which Dublin sent out to Donnybrook on 
the days of its fair ; the multitude which throngs the road from 



INVITATIONS TO PUTTEEALA. 415 

London to Epsom on the "Derby-day;" the processions which 
come with music and banners from New-England villages to a 
" mass-meeting ; " or the 4th of July in Boston, never exhibited 
more eager excitement, or half so much method, or a tithe of the 
good-nature, which these Hindoos showed as they trudged along, 
coming from all parts of Hindostan, to attend a Braminical festival 
at Hurdwar, which is to be improved by being used also as a great 
horse-fair. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, we obtained a first view of the 
Himalaya Mountains, stretching in a long, blue, hazy outline in the 
horizon, sixty miles distant. Major Tigh, commissioner for the 
district, met us at the station, and brought us to his fine old bun- 
galow, situated in a beautiful park. An Irishman, he retains 
equally the warm-heartedness and the naivete of his countrymen. 

Putteeala, March 31st. — Immediately after our arrival at 
Umballa, a native gentleman presented himself to Major Tigh, and, 
announcing himself as "canal agent" for the Maharajah of Put- 
teeala, asked to be presented to Mr. Seward. Before the latter had 
time to answer, a second native appeared, and, declaring himself to 
be the maharajah's "Minister of Justice," asked to be introduced. 
They were admitted, and each presented a letter of invitation from 
the Maharajah of Putteeala tendering us the hospitalities of his 
state, elegantly written in Arabic on gilt paper, the envelop being 
a bag of the finest kincob. The bag, as well as the notes, was per- 
fumed with attar of roses. The bag was tied with a silken cord, on 
which was suspended the great waxen seal (weighing four ounces) 
of the kingdom, principality, or state, of Putteeala. Yesterday, at 
five o'clock p. m., we proceeded in four carriages, each drawn by 
four horses, which the prince had sent to convey us to his capital. 
We were attended by his two messengers, the musteed (canal- 
agent) and the minister of justice, a large military escort, and many 
servants. Captain Horsford, of the British civil service, accom- 
panied us. At stages of one mile each, mounted sentinels first 
saluted us, and then joined our escort. The maharajah's high civil 
officers wore the finest of white India muslin turbans and robes, 



416 BRITISH INDIA. 

and his soldiers were arrayed in green, gold, and scarlet, as brightly 
as the birds of India. 

The Emperor Akbar and his successors made excellent roads, 
and at convenient stages built caravanserais for the security and 
rest of travellers. These hostelries, each of which is a fortification, 
are still well preserved. We stopped at the half-way caravanserai, 
and were met there by a large deputation of the maharajah's house- 
hold, in dainty costumes, similar to those worn by his messengers. 
These deputies, surrounded by sixty or seventy servants, tendered 
us congratulations, in the name of his highness, on our safe arrival 
thus far on our journey. Each individual member of these delega- 
tions presented to each one of us, on a massive silver salver, cov- 
ered with a white napkin, a half-dozen silver coins, and a fresh 
bouquet. As instructed, we touched these coins as acknowledg- 
ment of mutual friendship, and retained the flowers. This cere- 
mony was followed by a profuse supply of delicate refreshments. 
In the midst of these attentions, a telegram from Putteeala an- 
nounced that the British Ministers of Finance and Foreign Affairs 
for the district of Punjab were just leaving the town, and would 
desire to pay their respects to Mr. Seward when they should meet 
him. When we had gone a few miles on our way, those distin- 
guished personages, with their families, came rolling along in four 
four-horse carriages, and an escort — both the equipages and guard 
having been furnished by the maharajah, and being exactly on the 
same magnificent scale as those by which we were conducted. 
Greetings were exchanged, and a cordial invitation was given to 
Mr. Seward to extend his journey to Lahore, the capital of the 
Punjab. 

Putteeala, the capital of the province or native principality of 
the same name, is protected by a citadel as spacious, though not so 
substantially or scientifically constructed, as Fort Hamilton. Forti- 
.fications in India seem to have been built as retreats or places of 
safety for the sovereign or his family. The mother of the present 
prince resides in the citadel of Putteeala. Arriving at its gate, we 
came to a halt, and we saw through a cloud of dust the maharajah 
coming toward us in a magnificent state coach drawn by six white 



ELEPHANT-RIDING. 417 

horses ; the highway, on either side, was lined with outriders and 
a squadron of cavalry. The prince, driving by the side of our 
carriage, saluted Mr. Seward with stately cordiality. When the 
compliments were ended, the maharajah asked Mr. Seward in 
which manner he would prefer to make his entrance into the capi- 
tal ; whether he would go with him in his coach, or whether he 
would be pleased to make his entrance on the back of an elephant. 
Mr. Seward, diffident perhaps of his skill in the latter mode of 
travel, or acting under a conviction that modesty best becomes a 
visitor, accepted the offer of a seat in the coach. The maharajah, 
taking his seat at Mr. Seward's left, made a rapid advance toward 
the city. The ladies, like Mr. Seward, being complimented with 
the same choice of manner of entering the city, decided like Mr. 
Seward in favor of a comfortable coach-and-six. Hereupon a halt 
and parley ensued between Captain Horsford and the prince's 
master of ceremonies. In the course of this debate, it appeared 
that, while the prince excused Mr. Seward's declination of the 
honor of the elephant on the ground of his years, the ladies, who 
could offer no such plea, would give offence by claiming the same 
indulgence. Sixty elephants stood by the road-side, richly capari- 
soned in cloth of gold and scarlet, all ornamented with gilt ear- 
rings and necklaces. There was no more to be said on that ques- 
tion. The elephants kneeled, silver ladders were placed against 
their sides, and, in less time than it takes to describe the action, 
the two ladies, not venturing to ride alone, were seated together 
with Captain Horsford, in the spacious gilded and velvet howdah. 
The elephant arose with a motion like that of the surge on the 
coast of Madras, and the ladies found themselves in the upper air. 
The Hindoo driver sits on the elephant's head, and directs his 
motions by the use of an iron spike, which he thrusts against the 
skin on either side of the forehead. A procession was then 
formed. First, the maharajah with Mr. Seward ; then the ladies ; 
next, our three servants, Jeanie, Price, and Freeman ; next, the 
musteed ; next, the Minister of Justice, mounted in the same 
manner, and behind them the long train of elephants without 
any riders, and the five hundred richly-caparisoned horses, led 



418 BRITISH INDIA. 

by as many grooms no less gayly dressed. As a signal for the 
progress to begin, the air was rent by a salvo of nineteen gims ; 
the salute was repeated by a fusillade from what seemed endless 
ranks of infantry, bugles sounded a march, and the cavalry 
moved to the front. Four bands of music wheeled into column, 
playing, more or less together, " God save the Queen ! " Behind 
them a company of fifty bagpipers, playing not altogether, as 
they fell into line, " Bonnie Dundee." At the moment of the 
cannonade the led horses kicked, pranced, and reared; the ele- 
phants uttered piteous, deep, indescribable cries, and tried to 
prick up their enormous jewelled ears, remaining otherwise quiet ; 
crowds on the wayside shouted applause, and children screamed 
with delight. As for Mr. Seward, he, fortunate gentleman, snugly 
seated by the maharajah on velvet cushions, in the coach drawn 
by six well-trained animals, was unconscious of the disturbance 
which had arisen behind him. His inexperienced and more ven- 
turesome companions clung to each other in fright — but order 
was restored, and all were reassured. On the way to his capi- 
tal, the maharajah addressed to Mr. Seward a studied speech 
of welcome. Taking care to express his regret that his guest had 
not accepted the elephant, the prince said that the troops we had 
passed in review were ten thousand in number. He also explained 
to Mr. Seward that, when he came to the throne, .he found no 
streets in Putteeala wide enough for such a pageant as he had occa- 
sion to make, and that he had, therefore, enlarged the streets, but 
not without making due compensation to the owners of adjacent 
property. Night came on as we reached the gates. We looked 
from our howdahs upon the flat roofs of the dwellings and shops be- 
low us. Their inmates were gathered at the doors in gay dresses, 
and seemed as diminutive as the burghers of Liliput. Thus we 
passed through the entire city, and reached, beyond the farther 
gate, an esplanade used as a Campus Martins. Winding around 
a tall flag-staff, under the folds of what is called the sacred banner, 
we stopped before a lofty Saracenic gate. Here, the maharajah, 
with Mr. Seward, alighted, and the elephant-riders dismounted. 
The prince led the way on a gravelled walk, by the side of sue- 



!l::l'ii! ; : 







A COSY PALACE. 419 

cessive fountains, in an orange and lemon garden, as it seemed, of 
boundless extent. Each fountain poured over a cascade into the 
next. These cascades were illumined by torch-lights from behind, 
which imparted to the jets all the hues of the rainbow. "We 
stopped at the porch of a small Saracenic palace. The prince, 
taking Mr. Seward by the hand, led him up a gentle flight of steps, 
across a veranda, into a salon which may be eighty by forty feet, 
and thirty feet high, the ceiling supported by a double row of col- 
umns, and the walls draped with orange and scarlet silks. " This 
palace," said the maharajah, " is yours ; this is the hall in which 
you will sit, these apartments on either side of it are the rooms in 
which you will sleep. You must be weary with your journey. I 
beg to take my leave for the night. I shall have the honor to visit 
you to-morrow morning." 

The ladies were not slow in exploring the cosy little palace. 
Its lights, furniture, and ornamentation, are an Oriental exaggera- 
tion of the European style. The welcome dinner, though prepared 
by a French hand, and graced with the best wines of France, Ger- 
many, and Portugal, was served by Hindoos, who, dressed in flow- 
ing white gowns, glided noiselessly in bare feet over the velvet 
carpet. It was evident, as he himself said, that the Prince of Put- 
teeala is not like those "people" whom we see in Calcutta, As 
for the ladies, they expressed a doubt whether the story of Aladdin 
is indeed a fiction. 



CHAPTEK XII. 

PUT TEE ALA {Continued). 

Oriental Displays and Diversions. — The Menagerie. — The Prisons. — The Heir-Apparent. — 
An Elephant Fight. — Jesters and Jugglers. — The Royal Palace. — Magnificence of the 
Maharajah. — The Durbar. — The Young Prince. — Superb Presents. — A Magnificent 
Salon. — The Maharajah's Conversation with Mr. Seward. — An Exhibition of Fire- 
works. 

April 1st. — This has been a day of bewildering succession 
of Oriental displays and diversions. The Minister of Public 
Works came before breakfast, and attended us to the inevi- 
table menagerie. The aviaries, though full, are inferior to those of 
the King of Oude. We saw, for the first time, the long-legged, 
awkward, brown cassowary, whose name rhymes to "missionary" 
in the witty verse where " Timbuctoo " finds its answer in " hymn- 
book too." The tiger collection is very fine, many of the animals 
of huge size and quite untamed. Prom the cages of w T ild beasts 
Ave passed to the cages of wild men, the state-prison of Putteeala. It 
covers an area of four acres, enclosed by a low adobe wall. There 
are eight hundred and twenty-five prisoners, chiefly convicted of 
the crimes of arson and burglary ; of these, only one hundred 
and fifty can read and write. Two hundred convicts are impris- 
oned in other parts of the province. Imprisonment is generally 
for a term of one, two, three, or seven years, occasionally for life. 
Capital punishment is inflicted only for murder. The population 
of the city of Putteeala is eighty thousand, and that of the ancient 



A LITTLE PRINCE. 421 

kingdom or principality is two millions, and yet there lias been no 
capital execution in two years. The prisoners are neither confined 
in separate cells, nor do they live together. Those of each caste 
work, sleep, and eat, in different divisions of the building ; the 
odious distinction of caste is preserved nowhere more absolutely 
than here. The pariahs, outcasts everywhere in common life, are 
equally segregated in prison, and subjected if possible to a lower 
humiliation. All are heavily ironed, and are guarded by an armed 
police of three hundred men. Their labor is either hard or light, 
according to the grade of their offence. Hard labor consists of 
grinding grain with a hand-mill ; light labor is weaving carpet, 
making shoes, pottery-ware, and the like. Our labor-reformers in 
the United States may find a new argument for their claims in the 
fact that, by the laws of Putteeala, five hours are a full day's work. 
The prisoners have native medical attendance, but no religious or 
secular instruction. The products of the prison are sold in the 
markets, and nearly defray its expenses, which average fourteen 
cents a day for each convict. We found at the prison-gate, as we 
came out, a train of elephants kneeling for our service, but we 
respectfully declined the honor. On the way homeward, we met a 
small boy in a gilded coach, with postilions and outriders. He 
was so richly arrayed and superbly attended, that we at once con- 
jectured him to be the heir-apparent. It was fortunate that we 
saluted him as such ; for the minister who attended us afterward 
informed us that the little lad had been sent out to meet Mr. 
Seward, and was attended by the entire ministry. We breakfasted 
alone in our little palace, at ten o'clock. The maharajah came at 
eleven. He invited Mr. Seward and the ladies to a grand durbar. 
The English ladies whom we have met in India have declared to 
us that they decline to receive native princes, on the ground that 
the ladies of India decline to receive gentlemen in the zenanas. 
The reason given for this seclusion of women is, that a general 
intercourse with society would be immoral and unbecoming the 
dignity of the sex. But we are inclined to think that Christian 
women who thus refuse to recognize the native gentlemen are 
in fact adopting the bad customs and manners of India, instead 



422 BRITISH INDIA. 

of commending our own better morals and manners to the people 
of that country. The prince's invitation was accepted. He 
seemed to have only just taken his leave, when we were summoned 
to meet him at the pavilion at the centre gate. Here he con- 
ducted us up a winding staircase, and gave us seats in a balcony, 
which overlooks the esplanade. He performed this courtesy in a 
manner which showed that he fully understands the Western 
sentiment of respect for women. He afterward took care to 
explain to us, through the prime-minister, his regret that the pre- 
vailing and uncompromising religious sentiment of the country 
prevented him from introducing the Western social customs into 
his own family. He has two wives, neither of whom has ever seen 
a foreigner, man or woman, nor has ever met even a countryman 
of her own, other than the nearest blood relations. The prince 
added that, before the Mohammedan conquest, the women of his 
own royal house were more distinguished for political ability and 
energy than the men. A strange remark for an Oriental. 

The entertainment to which we had come was an elephant- 
fight. Two enormous combatants were brought on the field. 
They came with manifest reluctance. Their tusks had been cut 
away half their length, and the stumps were bound with brass. 
They fought by pushing their broad foreheads against each other, 
and by crowding with the shortened tusks. It was seen, after 
one short encounter, that one animal was more powerful than the 
other. The weaker retreated. No effort his keeper made could 
encourage him to renew the contest, nor could any urging by the 
driver of the victorious beast induce him to pursue his advantage. 
The prince dismissed these combatants, or rather non-combatants, 
with disgust, and caused them to be immediately replaced by two 
other animals of equally gigantic size. They fought in the same 
way as the first, and with about the same result, except that the 
vanquished animal in this case retreated quite out of the arena, 
while the conqueror was with much difficulty held back from pur- 
suit. These latter contestants gave place in their turn to two others, 
and the form of the combat varied. With their trunks, they clasped 
each other by the head, and, thus embraced, they continued a battle 



JESTERS AND JUGGLERS. 



423 



until one became so worried and exhausted that he gave up the 
contest. The maharajah said, " These elephants are good fight- 
ers, but the heat overpowers them." We agreed with him about 
the temperature, while we thought the performance of the poor 
beasts needed no apology. The prince now took his leave, and we" 
returned to our palace, and took our seats on the veranda under a 
canopy of Cashmere shawls, supported by silver staffs, the fountains 
gurgling at our feet. Two court-jesters appeared before us, and in 
the Hindoo language went through a rehearsal of drolleries and 
pantomimes, which seemed to us not unworthy of Dan Rice or 
G. L. Fox. They gave place to an acrobat, who, although eighty 




A CONJUROR AT PUTTEEALA. 



years old, displayed prodigious strength and agility. "With a long 
sword in hand, he turned a double somersault, cutting a betel-nut 
in two parts. Although these performances were ordered for our 



33 



4:24: BRITISH INDIA. 

own party, they soon attracted a crowd of native spectators, who 
manifested a higher appreciation for them than we did. We en- 
joyed much more highly their rapt attention ; but the prime 
minister would have no such vulgar intrusion. The admiring 
crowd was dispersed. Then came on another sport, a company 
of jugglers, one, a young man who performed feats with a goat 
and a monkey ; another, a very old and eccentric Sikh, with 
long, white hair, and eyes as large and sunken as those of 
Daniel Webster. He seemed a man to whom we should pay our 
homage, rather than one who should be required to cater to our 
amusement. His achievement was to make a pigeon fire a mimic 
cannon. The ordnance was duly loaded and primed. It went off, 
but, in the act, the gentle gunner rose into the air, and went off too. 
The string of his captivity had fallen from his feet. He perched on 
the palace-roof. The poor old man tried in vain to entice him 
down. He appealed to the new audience which had gathered 
round, but no assistance could be given. The juggler became 
inconsolable ; when he saw his loss, he assumed an attitude as 
piteous as that of " Rip Van Winkle " when he discovers the 
absence of his faithful " Schneider." 

Next came a musical band, which gave us a concert on native 
instruments, playing their pensive airs, which we thought at first 
so unintelligible, but which we now find pleasing, sometimes quite 
touching. The gamut is like our own, of eight tones, but in play- 
ing or singing a melody, called rang, they use all the semi-tones, 
so that the performance is a chromatic succession of notes, and you 
have to guess which of the accentuated tones speak the air. Sud- 
denly, at the prime minister's command, this series of diversions 
came to an end, and all the performers, musicians, jesters, jugglers, 
acrobats, and fools, disappeared. - Thereupon sixty thorough-bred 
Arabian, Persian, Australian, and African horses, came before us 
for inspection. They were gorgeously caparisoned, with silken 
bridles, golden trimmings, kincob and velvet robes, and housings 
of India cashmere. They wore also gold ear-rings and necklaces 
and bangles. One of them, which is claimed to be the fastest horse 
in India, borrows the name "Hermit" from the great English 



THE MAHARAJAH'S PALACE. 425 

courser. The fantastical grooms manifested scarcely less pride 
than the horses themselves in showing their fine points. 

What wonder that we now thought the princely exhibition was 
ended ? It was not, though. We were summoned again to our 
seats in the pavilion at the -gate. Two elephants came into the 
area with their calves — one of these born since the captivity of the 
cow, the other made a captive with its mother in the jungle. Few 
persons, perhaps, can imagine how skilfully the little animal throws 
back its trunk, while taking its nutriment. The calf that was 
" native here, and to the manner born," was bold and. indifferent, 
the other timid and frightened. Its cries were almost human, and 
the mother's manner of soothing it not less so. 

At five o'clock, Mr. Seward, the ladies, Captain Horsford, and 
servants, were duly mounted in gorgeous howdahs on elephants, 
Mr. Seward being raised to his howdah in a gilded palanquin. 
Notwithstanding our previous experience, we all felt insecure in 
our exaltation. While the elephants rose to their feet, we held fast 
to the arms of our howdahs, very much as the landsman grasps the 
bulwark of a ship in a high sea. Our animals marched three 
abreast, covering the entire pavement of the widened streets. 
With the careful help of numberless supple grooms, the party came 
safely to the foot of the broad staircase within the court of the 
palace, except that, on our calling the roll, Freeman did not answer. 
He, like the rest, was mounted on an elephant, but was left behind. 

The palace is built on the sides of a quadrangle, is four stories 
high, and is quite imposing. A battalion of infantry presented 
arms, and a ringing blast from the bugles of a squadron of cavalry 
greeted us as we entered the court. While we were dismounting, 
a brass band played the ever-favorite national anthem in honor of 
Mr. Seward, and the bagpipers followed with " Annie Laurie " in 
honor of the ladies. We have heretofore described the magnifi- 
cence of the attire of the Maharajah of Putteeala, when he appeared 
at the opera and at the concert in Calcutta. We wondered at the 
strings of emeralds and pearls which drooped from his neck and 
turban, when he met us yesterday at the citadel. When he paid 
his visit of ceremony this morning at the pavilion, we thought he 



426 BRITISH INDIA. 

could have nothing in reserve so fine as the diamonds and emeralds 
he then wore. One chain, suspended from his turban, contained 
twenty-six brilliants, each as large as a hazel-nut. But those dec- 
orations were simplicity itself when compared with the pearls, 
rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, which flashed upon us 
as he stood resplendent on the portico above, waiting to receive us. 
The music, until now hushed, burst forth from twelve unseen bands 
at once. "With majestic courtesy, he took Mr. Seward by the hand 
and conducted him up the steps, and across the terraced portico, 
and seated him in a silver arm-chair, which was placed on a dais 
within a recess, in a great hall of audience, which was filled to its 
utmost capacity. Then excusing himself, his highness returned to 
the portico, and conducted one of the ladies to an equally magnifi- 
cent seat ; then returned, and brought the other lady in the same 
courtly manner. He then seated himself between the two ladies. 
Mr. Seward had become anxious, and now asked Captain Horsford 
for Freeman. Inquiry was made, and he was found sitting meekly, 
if not quite patiently, in his gilded howdah, forgotten in the bustle ; 
equally unable to descend without assistance, or to make his wants 
known. At command, a silver ladder was raised against the kneel- 
ing beast, and Freeman entered, having had to wait his audience at 
Putteeala, as he had before to wait for the fifteenth amendment to 
bring him to the citizenship of the United States. 

The music ceased. The prince, now turning to Mr. Seward, 
delivered an elaborate speech, in which he explained, in a strain 
perhaps not altogether free from Eastern hyperbole, the pride and 
satisfaction which he derived from Mr. Seward's visit to his capital, 
and to the palace of his ancestors. This discourse was followed by 
an address equally complimentary to each of the ladies. Mr. 
Seward replied that it was particularly gratifying to him to be 
received with so much consideration in one of the most important 
of the native states of India. These compliments finished, the 
infant son and heir of the prince was brought in, accompanied by 
twenty or more tutors, and attendants, and was formally presented 
to each of the visitors. The little boy, only four years old, is very 
pretty. He has large dark eyes and curling black hair. His small 



THE INFANT PRINCE. 



427 



rich scarlet-and-blue silk dress was loaded with jewels. An enor- 
mous turban, embroidered with gold, seemed enough to weigh him 
down. He stood erect and made profound salams y then one of 
his tutors, speaking in tne child's name, said : " I had the honor of 
meeting your excellencies, in jour morning drive, and I hope you 
have had a pleasant day. I shall always remember that I have 
seen you here." Having gone through his part with perfect pro- 
priety, the young prince, like any less distinguished child, laid his 
curly head on the arm of his great silver chair, and was soon sound 




THE PRINCE OF rUTTEEALA 



asleep. The maharajah now spoke of his domestic state, saying, 
however, nothing of wife or wives. He dwelt, as a proud father 
might, on his two children, the one who was now with us, and the 
other a girl, still younger, in the zenana. He then gave us a brief 
account of his father, who was distinguished for his heroism, and 
of his two sisters, one of whom is dead, the other a widow. This 
easy and pleasant conversation over, a troop of nautch-girls came 
upon the floor, more richly dressed and more graceful even than 



428 BRITISH INDIA. 

those we saw at the regatta on the Ganges. The hall was now 
cleared. Fifty Sikh bagpipers, in British uniform, marched through 
the hall, discoursing familiar airs under the leadership of a Scottish 
piper, in tartan and kilts. 

After these amusements, the husiness of the durbar was re- 
sumed. The maharajah's ministers of state were announced, 
appeared and made salams in a manner which elsewhere might be 
thought affected or obsequious, but here is graceful and dignified. 
Mr. Seward detained each, with questions in regard to the affairs 
of his department, and the form in which it is conducted. Next 
came the general and commanders of the army, not forgetting the 
Highland leader of the pipers. Putteeala has no navy. Last, a 
great number of persons, presented as " relatives of the prince," 
employed in judicial, political, and municipal trusts. No present- 
able man in the city was omitted. The presentations being over, a 
multitude of servants, " that no man in haste could number," came 
bearing silver trays on their heads filled with India fabrics of mus- 
lins, cambrics, cashmeres, silks, and jewels, and laid the whole at 
Mr. Seward's feet, the trays covering twenty feet square on the 
floor. The prince, with infinite gravity, invited Mr. Seward to 
accept this " small and unwortlry collection " as a token of his 
highness's respect and affection. Mr. Seward, having been previ- 
ously instructed, touched with his finger the simplest article, a 
turban scarf of purple interwoven with gold thread. The trays 
and their bearers immediately disappeared, but only to be replaced 
by a similar display, no less costly and elegant. These treasures 
were laid at the feet of one of the ladies, who was asked to accept 
this " poor trash." In accordance with an intimation through an 
officer, she touched a cashmere shawl. The train and merchandise 
disappeared, and the third and equal presentation was made to the 
second lady, who in like manner touched a shawl. The prince, 
who had looked on with an air of supreme indifference to the 
whole proceeding, then said to Mr. Seward, " I have a great many 
other things in the palace, which I should like to present to you, 
but I will not take up your time to look at them." Then, thanking 
Mr. Seward and the ladies for having accepted these " unworthy 



A MAGNIFICENT SALON. 429 

trifles," lie in a loud voice, and with an imperious manner, directed 
that all the articles which had been thus displayed and offered to 
us, should he conveyed to Mr. Seward's palace and delivered to his 
servants. For our part, we are quite sure that " these unworthy 
trifles " would have been sufficient to stock an Indian bazaar in 
New York. Price, Freeman, and Jeanie, who had been filled 
with admiration in witnessing the august ceremony, became sud- 
denly perplexed to know how they should convey so large a quan- 
tity of precious baggage in our small special railway car. 

The Prince of Putteeala now spoke with pride of the salon in 
which the durbar was held, and not without reason. It is one 
hundred and thirty feet long, sixty feet wide, and thirty feet high. 
The roof is supported by double rows of columns, between which 
are suspended crystal chandeliers, with variegated-glass shades for 
two thousand lights. The walls, on all sides, are hung with mir- 
rors. Mr. Seward rose to take leave. The betel-nut was offered to 
our palates, the attar of roses to our hands, and we were dismissed 
with a suggestion that we should drive through those of the city 
parks and gardens which we had not yet seen, and then return for 
a final visit in the evening. The maharajah conducted us down 
the staircase and placed us in carriages. We drove an hour 
through the public grounds, being stopped every few rods by gar- 
deners, who covered us with flowers, and filled our carriages with 
fruit. A band of music, on the way, gave us " God save the 
Queen," which tune these good people seem to think to be a 
national hymn of our own. On the way to our pavilion, we met 
the maharajah, driving his favorite " Hermit " before a dog-cart, at 
a furious rate, followed by a flying escort. 

We returned to the palace at eight o'clock. All the two thou- 
sand candles were ablaze, and were reflected to infinitude by the 
broad, bright mirrors. Not only the salon, but the court, the 
grand stairway, the portico, the entire palace, with its thousand 
windows and balconies, were illuminated. So the ancestral hall of 
Putteeala was as brilliant as the mountain -palace in which Cupid 
visited the enchanted Psyche. We had an hour of conversation, 
which was the more interesting because informal. It turned chiefly 



430 BRITISH INDIA. 

on the prince's intended journey the next year to England, and 
his desire to extend it to the United States. He presented his 
photograph to Mr. Seward, and requested him to write from 
different points on his travels in India. He then asked for a 
minute account of the painful event at Washington, in which 
Mr. Seward was a sufferer. He showed a deep interest in that 
subject, although his knowledge of it was imperfect. The mahara- 
jah now informed us that he had made all needful arrangements 
for our comfortable journey to the Himalayas. His thoughts then 
turned once more upon himself. He ordered in> and exhibited 
with much pride, his state-robes, among them the one in which we 
had seen him at the concert in Calcutta. All of them were stiffened 
with jewels. Estimated together, with his paternal shield and sword, 
their value is half a million dollars. 

Taking a final leave, we returned to our pavilion, expecting 
that our late dinner would be a quiet one. We were mistaken. 
At the moment when the dessert came upon the table, the Minister 
of Public Affairs announced an exhibition of fire-works in the gar- 
den. We walked through a section of it which we had not previ- 
ously had time to explore, and, amid the murmuring of cascades, 
took our seats in the balcony of a little palace or pavilion, the coun- 
terpart of the one in which we reside. The pyrotechnic exhibition 
had all the variety of our similar displays at home, but in excess. 
A party of a hundred artists on each side of the oblong lake were to 
alternate with a corresponding corps on the opposite side. These 
performers were, however, so emulous that, instead of making such 
a measured display as they intended, the whole exhibition went off 
simultaneously. There were lanterns, transparencies, rockets, ser- 
pents, trees, wheels, stars, ribbons, candles, balloons, naval fights, 
and bombardments ; all these illuminations being reflected from the 
surface of the clear, smooth lake and surrounding cascades and foun- 
tains. The unexpected activity of the performers, while it produced 
much perplexity and confusion, had, nevertheless, one compensation 
for us; within twenty minutes from the time the display began, 
sun, moon, stars, dragons, serpents, and balloons, were expiring all 
around us, leaving only blackened frame-works on the ground. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

A GLANCE AT THE HIMALAYAS. 

Departure from Putteeala. — Along the Banks of the Jumna. — Protection from the Sun. 
— Reception at Pindarrie. — An Illumination. — Kalka and Kussowlee. — The British 
Commissioner. — A View of the Himalayas. — An Irish Home. 

April 3d. — We left Putteeala, on the morning of the 1st in- 
stant, by a train of four-horse post-coaches, which the maharajah 
had placed at our service, and, under a farewell salute, began the 
last stage of our excursion to the Himalayas. After stopping here 
to lunch, we continued the journey thirty-five miles along the banks 
of the Jumna, making in all sixty -nine miles. Though the coun- 
try over which we passed seemed sandy and barren, yet the firm 
metallic roads were crowded with bullock and dak mule-trains car- 
rying freights to the troops, dwellers, and sojourners, in the moun- 
tains. All classes here regard the sun as their chief enemy, and the 
head as his point of attack. The natives, not content with covering 
it with a thick turban, draw all their garments over it, and even 
wear their pallet beds upon it. For ourselves, we have divided on 
this subject. The ladies wear the solar topees (pith hats) of the 
country, while Mr. Seward adheres tenaciously to his light, broad- 
brimmed "Panama." As the night came on, the dak animals, 
arriving at their frequent stations, were unharnessed, and, as they 
would say on the Plains, were "corralled." Their drivers sat down 
to enjoy their frugal meals under the trees. The breeze, however, 
on that day awakened a driving, blinding sand-storm, bringing on 



432 BRITISH INDIA. 

thick darkness. Our road, sometimes crossing river-channels, now 
dry, and then winding across orchards of mango, tamarind, and 
date-palm trees, on the plain, became uncertain and unsafe. The 
only lights which appeared in the lonely journey were by no means 
inspiriting. They were Hindoo obsequies, and 

" All around 
Glared evermore the frequent funeral-piles." 

The fearful sand-storm was laid by a pouring rain, which only 
made the darkness more intense. "We were about sinking with fa- 
tigue and apprehension, when our spirits were roused by innumer- 
able torch-lights. The people of Pindarrie, a town belonging to 
the Maharajah of Putteeala, looking for our arrival, had come out 
to meet us on the plain. Under this cheering illumination, they 
presented to us their " submission," and tendered the hospitalities 
of the place. They conducted us through crowded streets, and we 
alighted under a broad, high gate. Received here, we passed, by 
the light of the torches,, a series of fountains with intervening cas- 
cades, like those of Putteeala — our guides at the same time in* 
forming us that the walks had been illuminated, but, much to their 
disappointment and grief, the storm had extinguished the lights. 
A pavilion in the spacious garden received us for the night. It 
differed from our house at Putteeala, being of purer Hindoo archi- 
tecture, instead of being Moorish with European accessories. The 
dinner provided for us, though elaborate, did not detain us long. 
Clambering high, steep stairways, and passing through narrow 
corridors, we reached a suite of apartments, with balconies over- 
looking the fountains. We were most reluctantly awakened two 
hours later by an announcement that the storm was over, and that 
the garden was illuminated for our special entertainment. It is 
not in human nature to resist persevering kindness timidly offered. 
We dressed ' and performed with all alacrity the duty expected of 
us as admiring spectators. The light, refracted and streaming 
through the cascades, gathered into brightness over them, and glis- 
tening on the dripping foliage up through the orange-trees, lost it- 
self in the pale, glimmering rays of the half-clouded moon. Unlike 



EIDE TO KUSSOWLEE. 433 

our experience at " tlie metropolis," our sleep that night in provin- 
cial Pindarrie was not a complete success. Our house was indeed 
Oriental in its appointments as well as in construction. The.atmos- 
phere, cooled by the storm, was refreshing, and the music of rus- 
tling leaves and falling waters was soothing, but the princely pavil- 
ion, inhabited only on occasions like the present, has become the 
abode of owls, bats, rats, lizards, and centipedes. We had hardly 
fallen into a second slumber, when we were aroused this time to 
wage war with those malignant disturbers of human repose. The 
allied army was more than once put to flight, but it came back with 
a strong reenforcement of well-disciplined and practical mosquitoes. 
The trial was attended by only one equivalent : it enabled us to see, 
as the storm cleared away, and the full moon resumed her splendor, 
a range of the Himalayas stretching across the northern horizon. 

The next morning, at an early hour, we drove four miles to 
Kalka, at the base of the mountains, the end of the carriage-road. 
In reaching Kalka, we had come twelve hundred miles from Cal- 
cutta, and gained an elevation of two thousand feet, without other 
evidence of it than a somewhat lower temperature, and a slightly 
perceptible difference of vegetation. We were now to climb five 
thousand feet higher, to the summit of the lowest range of the 
Himalayas, at Kussowlee, and to do this in a journey of nine miles. 
Mountain -travel here is done in three ways; by the jham/pau, a 
rude sedan-chair ; the paffcee, a covered litter, in which the passenger 
is obliged to lie down ; or in the saddle with mules and ponies. We 
took jhampaus and ponies. At the moment of departure, our guide, 
raising his arm almost perpendicularly, pointed to a white object, 
high up the mountain-acclivity, and said, " Behold Kussowlee ! " 
Like all mountain-roads, these are engineered by torrents winding 
down deep, irregular, and dark ravines or canons. At one moment 
we had the sun on our right, then quickly on our left, sometimes 
in front, and sometimes at our back, and as often directly over- 
head. Often we descended, by a long road hewn from the moun- 
tain-side, into shaded dells, and crossed noisy brooks, only to rise by 
a similar acclivity to higher hill-tops. Sometimes we looked for 
an indefinite distance over the smiling plain of the Jumna, almost 



434 BRITISH INDIA. 

fancying that we saw its junction with the Ganges, and then sud- 
denly found ourselves imprisoned within lowering, frowning walls 
of mountain-rocks. We passed a fortification, which, before the 
British occupation, protected the peaceful lowlanders against incur- 
sions from the wild and more vigorous invaders from Afghanistan. 
It hung so long over our heads that we thought this castle must 
mark the end of our journey. With much surprise, we afterward 
found ourselves looking down upon the same fortification, and as 
yet we were more than five miles from Kussowlee. The date-palm 
maintains its foothold for only a short distance on the mountain- 
side. Wheat-fields are seen at the height of three thousand feet. 
Those below are quite ready for the sickle, while the uppermost 
fields show the bluish-green blade, as we see it at home, when just 
unveiled from the snow. Wheat will be gathered on the banks of 
the Potomac long before that which is growing on these mountain- 
terraces. The palm and the mango gave place chiefly to the low 
candelabra cactus, which seems to require neither depth of soil nor 
constant moisture. This showy plant intermingles with elders and 
alders, white, blue, yellow, purple, and crimson mountain-flowers, 
here and there a dwarf rhododendron, and profuse " Virginia creep- 
ers." At the height of four thousand feet, the cactus gives up the 
struggle, and the small plateaus are covered with low spreading 
pines, with trunks of not more than eight inches in diameter. The 
road now becomes more steep, the precipices more abrupt. It is 
the season of drought. The mountain-sides are brown. There is, 
nevertheless, in every dell, a village or hamlet, the houses mainly 
built of sand-stone, with thatched-roofs, and surrounded by stacks of 
hay and small herds of small cattle, much more sleek and fat than 
those which are raised on the plains. Travellers who have visited the 
eastern part of the Himalayas tell us that, on heights greater than 
those which we reached, they found forests of oak and laurel. We 
did not see the eagle which those travellers describe as soaring over 
the mountain-peaks, nor the monkey which they say pelts the 
passer-by in the valley of Cashmere. Before we reached Kussowlee, 
thick clouds arose, as is their wont, leaving no towering peak, pin- 
nacle, or distant range of mountains visible. Kussowlee, a not in- 



A GLIMPSE OF THE HIMALAYAS. 435 

considerable native town, is now occupied with army hospitals and 
a small garrison. Major Parsons, commissioner at Simla, had pro- 
vided for 11s a pleasant lodge in the village. A lassitude came 
over us in consequence of our travelling in the upper air, and this 
commingled with feelings of disappointment that, although we had 
come so far to see the Himalayas, we were to see only their base. 
The British officers, considerate and hospitable, as we have univer- 
sally found them, allowed us two hours for rest, before the entertain- 
ment at which we were to receive their families. Here, as at Pin- 
darrie, we were awakened prematurely, but more to our satisfaction ; 
the sky had brightened, and the snow-clad range was visible. We 
hastened to the veranda, and the Himalayas confronted us, stretch- 
ing east and west as far as the eye could reach, looming half-way 
up to the centre of the heavens. The crest was an undulating field 
of dazzling snow ; but presto, change ! Even at the moment when 
we were aiming the telescope, black spots descended on that white 
mantle. The clouds came back again. Thenceforth, neither rocks 
nor snow-fields were to be seen. The distant Himalayas had dis- 
appeared as suddenly as they had come before us. Nevertheless, 
we were content. "We stood on the giant's foot, and for one mo- 
ment had looked him fully in the face. 

At mid-day the horizon cleared, and we saw, eastward, the 
valley in which the mighty Ganges has his cradle ; and, westward, 
the plain in which not only the Indus has its fountains, but also 
that from which the Jhylum and Sutlej spring. It was something 
to study, from this stand-point, the geography of the continent. 
From our eminence we distinctly traced the mountain-passes 
through which the northern invaders of India came — the Tartar, 
the Afghan, the Persian, and even the great Macedonian. We 
left with regret the interesting society which gathered arom;d us at 
Kussowiee. As we descended the mountain, we remarked that we 
found this portion of the Himalayas as sterile and dull during a 
large part of the year as the Eocky Mountains. Neither the one 
nor the other can be cultivated without partial irrigation, but with 
it the now desolate valleys and table-lands may be made as luxuri- 
ant and beautiful as the peaks which rise above them are sublime. 



436 



BRITISH INDIA. 



It was nightfall when we reached our Hindoo resting-place at 
Pindarrie. All the way down, the guides were on the lookout 
for panthers, which infest this fine Government road, but we saw 
no wild-beast of any kind, though we heard all around us the 
mournful and distracting howls of the jackal. Cakes, tea, and 
wine, awaited us at Kalka — a generous supper, with renewed and 
successful illumination of the fountains, at Pindarrie. 

Simple, gentle mountaineers ! Pleased above all other pleas- 
ures when pleasing the stranger. When shall we see again hos- 
pitalities like those of town and country in Putteeala ? 

Taking our leave as soon as possible, w r e resumed our carriages 
at eleven o'clock, and by the light of the now unclouded moon we 
made our way down the bank of the Jumna, and found the gates 
and door of Major Tigh's Irish home wide open at three o'clock 
in the morning. What a happy realm Great Britain would "be, if 
the English and the Gaelic elements were combined as harmoni- 
ously in the entire population of the islands as they are in that 
genial dwelling ! 






THE HIMALAYAS. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

ALLAHABAD AND JUBBULPOOR. 

An Interesting Debate. — Earl Mayo, the Viceroy of India. — His Murder. — The Vindhya 
Mountains. — Industrial Activity of Jubbulpoor. — An Elephant Ride. — A Night Voy- 
age on the Neibudda. — Romantic and Beautiful Scenery. — Hindoo Tenderness for 
Animals. 

Government House, Allahabad, April 6th. — We arrived at a 
late hour last night. The rest which was so needful was broken 
at dawn by martial music. A detachment was escorting the vice- 
roy from the railway-station to Government House. 

We have had the good fortune to hear a very interesting debate 
in the Legislative Council, over which he presides, and also of 
dining with him and the members of that distinguished body. 
The viceroy is on his way with his court to the summer capital 
of Simla, in the same lower range of the Himalayas from which we 
have just descended. He rests here to-night, and the day after 
to-morrow he will hold the great durbar at Lucknow. The in- 
vitations to us to witness it are earnest, but the entire press of 
India is warning us to leave the country before the intense heat 
comes on. 

Earl Mayo ' has won our grateful regard by the studious care he 

1 On the 8th of May, 18*72, this wise and benevolent statesman, able magistrate, 

and genial friend, received his death at the hands of a Mohammedan political prisoner, 

while on a tour of inspection of the penitentiary at Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands. 

Our excsllent friend Lord Napier, as Governor of Madras, succeeded him as Viceroy of 

India, ad in/erim. 

34 



438 BRITISH INDIA. 

has practised for our safety, comfort, and instruction, during our 
travels in the country. Mr. Seward is highly gratified in having 
had this opportunity to renew his acknowledgments, and to 
assure the viceroy of the evidences he finds everywhere of the 
success of his administration. 

We take our departure to-night, and with it our regrets that we 
have not language to express to Sir "William Muir and his family 
our appreciation and gratitude for all their kindness. 

Jubbulpoor, April 8th. — We left Allahabad at midnight and 
opened our eyes this morning on a broad table-land of the Yin- 
dhya Mountains, the range which, traversing Hindostan from east 
to west, parts the tributaries of the Ganges from those of the 
Nerbudda and the Indus. These mountains, better known in early 
geography as the north border of the Deccan, intersect the lofty* 
Ghauts which stretch from Cape Comorin quite up to the Himala- 
yas. This region is less densely inhabited and more sparingly cul- 
tivated than the plain of the Ganges. Aboriginal tribes are still 
existing here, which have survived all the political changes of 
two thousand years, and still retain their primitive languages, re- 
ligions, and customs. 

Jubbulpoor exhibits much industrial activity. It is for West- 
ern India what Ogden is for the western region of the United 
States. The railways from Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, meet 
here. Mr. Grant, commissioner for the province, has received 
us with the same British hospitality and courtesies that have 
made our sojourn in India so agreeable. In this inclement sea- 
son few Europeans travel even on the railways during the day, 
and none go abroad in any other way except at night. Nothing 
remains for us, therefore, on our arrival, but to enjoy a most wel- 
come sleep. 

April 9th. — Carriages were in waiting at our door last evening, 
and we drove through the pretty suburb of the town, and into the 
open country. Night had fully set in when we reached a wooded 
glen. As we descended from the carriages, two grim elephants 



A NIGHT VOYAGE. 439 

kneeled before us. These animals are used instead of ambulances 
in the army. A rough board or pannier is swung on either side 
of the elephant, with a swinging stirrup below it. The rider is 
secured to his seat, if he need, by a rope round his waist, which is 
fastened to the animal's head. Our elephants, though docile 
enough, were young and impatient. They tramped four miles in 
half an hour, in the dark, along a narrow path through the jungle, 
fording a broad and deep stream on the way, greatly to our terror. 
At the end of the march, we stood at the door of a dak bungalow, 
hanging half-way down a rocky precipice, with the JSTerbudda 
meandering at its base. We rested an hour in the bungalow, and 
then with the aid of guides made our way cautiously three hundred 
and fifty feet down, and took our seats in a flat-bottomed boat. 
Patient Hindoos applied themselves noiselessly to the oars, and the 
voyage which we began, though dull at first, soon became one of 
absorbing interest. The Nerbudda here forces its passage through 
a mountain of white marble, and is twisted right and left by 
ledges projecting from either bank. The deep, dark river moves in 
its serpentine channel without perceptible current. The summits 
of the banks, changing position with every stroke of the oars, are 
covered with forest-trees, over the tops of which are seen the pin- 
nacles of innumerable Hindoo temples, raised here by a sentiment 
of superstitious reverence for scenery so romantic and beautiful. 
The river has the breadth of the Delaware at the famous Gap. 
The waning moon now rose over our heads. First, the one white 
rocky bank received the silvery light, jyhile the other was in dark 
shadow, then the other, and then, for only an instant, both shores. 
Now the temples and tree-tops intercepted the rays, then the 
luminary was reflected entire by the clear, still waters. The glis- 
tening, winding precipices, now in light, and now in shade, took 
on the shapes of castles, palaces, cathedrals, and temples. It 
seemed as if we were passing beneath the ruins of some vast capital 
like Benares. A dead silence prevailed, except that the owl, dis- 
turbed by our coming, poured forth his sad complaints from the 
overhanging rocks, and the jackal shrieked his despairing cry of 
hunger. All the while the river was smooth, and alternately black 



440 BRITISH INDIA. 

or shimmering in the moonlight. Suddenly our barge trembled, 
the stream beneath it broke into rapids, and we heard coming up 
before us the rumbling sound of a cataract. The voyage was 
finished. Returning by the same gentle beating of the oars, we 
studied under a more constant light all these enchantments in 
detail. The moon withdrew her light as we climbed the rugged 
bank and reached the bungalow. Then, laying aside our ambition 
for elephantine pomp, we contentedly took our seats in a jaunting- 
car, before which were harnessed two little white bullocks, leaving 
the elephants to follow with the servants. Our driver had an odd 
way of inciting the animals. "Whenever they stopped, he had only 
to pull their tails, and away they went over hill and dale, down the 
crooked ravine, and through the perilous ford, with such speed that 
they reached the station half an hour before the stately elephants, 
who came up at their appointed time. Here we resumed our car- 
riages. During the livelong night, wild beasts held high carnival 
around us on our homeward way. Jackals filled the air with their 
howls, and wild-boars dashed across the road, scarcely taking care 
to avoid the hoofs of our horses. 

It is almost enough to raise a doubt of the unity of the hu- 
man race, when one is called to contrast the perverse tenderness 
of the Hindoos toward animals, wjth the vigorous war which all 
other races make to subjugate or exterminate them. This tender- 
ness is a fruit of the national Pythagorean philosophy, whose 
element is transmigration, and teaches that the souls of men, after 
death, enter the bodies of animals. To what height of absurdity has 
this idea been carried ! The Thugs, now happily suppressed, found 
in it a religious warrant for plundering and strangling men, divid- 
ing the spoils with their altar of Kali. No Hindoo can be induced 
to pursue the tiger, the lion, or even the cobra de capello. It must 
have been in Hindostan that Mr. Darwin found his theory, which 
derives man from the monkey. The Hindoo farmer not only 
allows the simian race to feed on his growing crops and fruits, but 
also to glean in the harvest field. We felicitated the gardener at 
Putteeala on his fine crop of oranges. He responded that the 
monkeys would carry off the largest portion of the fruit. We 



THIEVING MONKEYS. 



441 



asked him why he did not drive them off. " We do frighten them 
away, but they come back again." 

" Why do you not kill them ? " 

" Oh ! " he replied, " if a man should kill one of those filching 
fellows, a hundred of them would come together, and they would 
never leave that man alive." 




THE NEKBUDDA. 



CHAPTER XV. 

BO MBA Y. 

The Ghaut Mountains. — A Cosmopolitan City. — The Natives of Bombay. — A Mixed Pop- 
ulation. — Chinese, Siamese, Javanese, Cingalese, Sikh, Afghan, and Cashmerian. — 
The Races of the South and the North, of the East and the West. — Parsee Customs. 
— Parsee Religion. — Hindoo, Mohammedan, and Parsee Disposal of the Dead. — Ad- 
miral Cockburn. — The Great Heat. — An Excursion to Elephanta. 

United States Consulate, Bombay, April 13th. — We arrived here 
on the 11th. The two mountain-ranges of the west coast of In- 
dia, called the Eastern and Western Ghauts, resemble our own 
Alleghanies. Their loftiest peaks are several thousand feet high. 
Although our journey from Jubbulpoor lay across both ranges, the 
highest plateau we crossed was two thousand feet. The largest 
cotton-fields of India are found in the valleys of the Nerbudda and 
the Taptee. Marvellous engineering has been practised in bring- 
ing the railway down from the plain of Nerbudda to the valley of 
the Taptee, which carries the ocean-tide up to the once great and 
now not unimportant port of Surat, one hundred and sixty miles 
north of Bombay. 

Our first impression on arriving here was that Bombay is more 
cosmopolitan than any other city in India. We experienced a feel- 
ing almost of regret when we left the cosy railway-car, which, for 
nearly a month, had been our rolling home. The stars and stripes 
were floating over the consulate not far from the railway station, 
and Mr. Farnham, the consul here, was awaiting our arrival. The 
Governor of Bombay, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, sent a secretary to 



POPULATION OF BOMBAY. 443 

tender us the hospitalities of Government House, and we found, 
also awaiting us, that eminent native gentleman, Sir Jamsetjee 
Jejeebhoy, with his three sons. Although the city of Bombay 
stands on an island, the railway-traveller is not made aware of its 
separation from the main-land. The terraced shore of the island 
looks across a bay, studded with lesser islands, and capacious 
enough for the commerce of the world. Lofty promontories, 
stretching out from the coast, divide the harbor into three not 
unequal basins. The native population here, more than in Madras 
and Calcutta, have engaged in European commerce, and they have 
also in a considerable degree come to adopt Western usages and 
customs. Indeed, it needs a close examination to distinguish be- 
tween the streets and dwellings occupied by the natives and those 
inhabited by Europeans. The cocoa-nut palm seems a universal 
favorite for purposes of shade and ornament. It embowers and 
almost conceals the homes of the million inhabitants of Bombay. 
The railroad system, recently completed, which connects the city 
with Calcutta, as well as with the peninsula and the Punjab, has 
enabled Bombay to supplant Calcutta as the gate of India. The 
people of Calcutta are sharply divided between the native Hindoo 
population and the resident Europeans. Bombay, on the contrary, 
has a mixed population. You see this the moment you enter the 
Bazaar, for so is called the part of the city devoted to native trade. 
There the inevitable and versatile Chinaman — who is seaman, mer- 
chant, and banker — the effeminate Siamese, Javanese, and Cinga- 
lese of the south, mingle with the sturdy Sikh, Afghan, and Cash- 
merian of the north. The native Mahratta stalks with haughty 
bearing through the streets, followed by the Portuguese half-castes 
of Goa. The black native of Madagascar is here, with the Persian, 
the Arab, the Abyssinian, the Syrian, the Turk, and the Greek 
from the Levant. Here in Bombay, moreover, Asiatics aspire to 
and gain high commercial rank, and social and political positions, 
under the liberal patronage of the government. The Parsee mer- 
chant vies with the educated Hindoo in establishing charity-schools 
and hospitals, and both alike obtain seats in the Legislative Coun- 
cil. "We have come even thus early under equal obligations to emu- 



444 BRITISH INDIA. 

lous members of the two emulous classes. We were entertained at 
dinner on the 10th at Government House by Sir Seymour Fitzger- 
ald and his mother. Some fifty ladies and gentlemen, all English, 
including the Bishop of Bombay, the members of the Legislative 
Council, and many officers of the army, were present. Though the 
dining-hall is furnished after the English fashion, the house is a 
spacious bungalow of one story, like most such structures in the 
tropics, with an encircling veranda as wide as the house. Our 
entertainment yesterday was equally hospitable, but of a very dif- 
ferent character. Manockjee Cursetjee, our Parsee host, with his 
two sons, stood at the basement-door of a square house of four lofty 
stories. Every apartment of the house looks out upon either the 
sea or the city. Although it was not yet dark, every chamber was 
brilliantly illuminated. We thought, at first, that this style of 
dwelling belonged exclusively to the Parsee, but we have found 
out since that the Hindoo emulates the Parsee in the height of the 
house and the brilliancy of its lights. The Parsee' s palace affords 
every convenience and comfort except the necessary easy staircase. 
"We declined the offer of being carried up by chairs, and ascended 
instead the corkscrew which leads to the fourth story, where we 
were received in a grand salon by the accomplished daughters of 
our host. They were dressed exquisitely in the native costume, 
except that they were guilty of offence against the national sense of 
propriety by covering their feet with shoes, and their hands with 
gloves. Manockjee Cursetjee, Esquire, is a Parsee of good family, 
native here, who acquired an English education, and studied law in 
the English university. Having obtained a judicial appointment 
from the government, and discharged its functions for some years 
with ability and success, he visited England and travelled exten- 
sively throughout Europe, being everywhere received in high 
circles. His daughters, who have been instructed by English gov- 
ernesses, have also travelled in Europe, and they are understood to 
be the first Hindoo ladies who have done so. His two sons were 
educated at Oxford and Cambridge. The ladies assured us that 
when travelling in Europe they adopted the Western costume, but 
they conform here to the Oriental habits and the dress of their 



PAESEE CHILDREN. 



445 



people. The gentlemen make a compromise on the clothes ques- 
tion. They were dressed at dinner faultlessly in European fashion, 
but had on scarlet- velvet caps ; while the father, throughout the 
entire evening, wore that strange, uncomfortable, ill-looking, fun- 
nel-shaped hat, by which the disciple of Zoroaster is known, and 
has been known a thousand years, wherever he has been seen 
throughout the whole world. Probably asceticism is inseparable 
from devotion ; certainly it has revealed itself at some time in the 
progress of every religion. Moreover, asceticism has always seized 




~~ s.u* 



PAESEE CHILDREN. 



upon the head to make it bear witness to the principle of humilia- 
tion. In Christian countries, the Friends and Shakers prescribe 
certain rules for wearing the hair and for the shape of the hat. 
The Eoman Catholic orders, regular and voluntary, do the same 
thing, though not precisely in the same way. The Buddhist no 
less than the Dominican requires the bare and shaven head. At 
the very foundation of the Christian Church, Paul made it a point 
of discipline that man ought not to " cover his head," nor women 



446 BRITISH INDIA. 

to wear " broidered hair." So rigid are the Parsees on the same 
subject that it is not lawful for one of the sect, man, woman, or 
child, to have an uncovered head within-doors or out-of-doors, by 
day or by night, awake or asleep. Perhaps this observation may 
not be thought entirely worthless, since it shows how inseparably 
manners are allied to morals. The intelligent Parsee insists that 
he worships not the sun nor lire, but that he adores one Supreme 
Spiritual God, though he admits that he reveres fire and the sun 
as an identical manifestation of the Deity. He does not claim, how- 
ever, that the unenlightened members of the sect make, or are capa- 
ble of making, this distinction. It is certain that every evening, 
wherever we may be, whether on the strand or on the terrace, we 
see the Parsee stop, stand still, and stretch forth his hands to the 
retiring god of day, in a posture of devout adoration. The Parsee 
temples are singularly plain. They contain nothing which is es- 
teemed sacred except the fires which burn on the altars, and which, 
according to their belief, have never been extinguished. Their reli- 
gion does not forbid animal food, nor are they divided into castes, 
but the sect has unconsciously taken upon itself the Asiatic idea of 
excluding women from society, and the Hindoo practice of prema- 
ture marriage. Notwithstanding their accommodation in this 
respect to the customs of those around them, Parsees are more 
intelligent, inquiring, and enterprising, than any other class of 
society in the East. In all foreign countries, they bear the charac- 
ter of honorable and liberal merchants. Here, where they are at 
home, their honor is sometimes questioned, but their enterprise is 
universally conceded. Their light complexion and regular features 
prove them to be of a higher Caucasian type than the Hindoos. 

In our drive yesterday, we passed a gate which disclosed an 
open area filled with the blaze of Hindoo pyres. We stopped to 
inquire into the form of the ceremony. Religion as well as custom 
requires that the nearest of kin shall apply the torch and watch 
the flames. The devout Bramin does not doubt that this act of 
piety performed by a son secures an instant opening of the gates 
of paradise to the departed parent. They tell us that until lately 
these burning ghauts were open on all sides, that they were found 



MODES OF BUEIAL. 447 

offensive, and that the British Government made strenuous efforts 
to induce the Bramins to discontinue the practice of cremation, or 
at least to remove the scene to a more secluded place. The only 
change, however, which could be secured, was the consent that a 
wall might be erected around the ghaut. 

A large enclosure adjoins the ghauts. It is a Mohammedan 
cemetery. Their monuments and graves are not unlike our own. 
Last of all, we came to the Parsee's home of the dead. It is a hill, 
enclosed with a very high wall. On the summit there is a dense 
grove of lofty palms ; in the centre of this grove, and high above its 
foliage, rises the " Tower of Silence." The tower encloses and pro- 
tects a dark, deep, open well, and across the top of the tower is a 
firmly-fixed grating of iron bars. The dead body is kid upon this 
iron grate, the flesh to be the food of the birds of the air ; the bones, 
as they fall asunder from exposure and decay, to drop into the pro- 
miscuous pit below. The Parsee who was our guide protests that 
this giving up the remains of friends and kindred to the vulture, 
the eagle, and the raven, seems horrible to him ; wherefore, when he 
was not long ago called upon to deposit the remains first of a wife, 
then of a daughter, he protected them with a strong metallic screen, 
so that the remains were left to natural decomposition from the 
sacred heat of the sun, and were absorbed in the pure atmosphere 
which he enlightens. We, of course, commended this refinement 
of his, although, to our minds, the truest mode of disposing of the 
body from which the spirit has departed is " earth to earth, ashes 
to ashes, dust to dust." 

April 14:th. — When in Northern India, we hastened our journey 
as much as possible to meet Admiral Cockburn, who had tele- 
graphed us that he was waiting with the Forte, to convey Mr. 
Seward and his party up' the Persian Gulf. On our arrival here, 
all classes of Europeans, Americans, and natives alike, protested 
that the season is too far advanced. As it so often happens at such 
times, travellers and letters have come down from Muscat, describ- 
ing the heat there as absolutely frightful. They add that the small- 
pox is raging throughout the country, that a famine is extensively 



448 BRITISH INDIA. 

prevailing, and finally that insurrection and civil war have broken 
out. Admiral Cockburn, prudent as he is generous, has been de- 
terred by these representations. Under his advice, therefore, Ave 
have relinquished the cherished purpose of visiting Muscat, Bagdad, 
and the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 

We must -pass by the many recherche entertainments given us 
by British residents in their beautiful villas on Malabar Hill, a 
place worth a graphic description. 

But if we neglect contemporaries, we cannot afford to be thought- 
less of the ancients. Yesterday we made a steam-yacht excursion 
in the harbor, with several ladies and gentlemen, among them the 
eminent Mahratta physician and scholar, Dr. Bhau Daji. The sail 
disclosed to us the beautiful environs of Bombay, especially the 
harbor and islands. The landing at Elephanta Island is represented 
by travellers as very difficult, but the Duke of Edinburgh was here, 
and, of course, the caves of Elephanta must be shown, at whatever 
cost, to the scion of England's royal line. In this emergency, the 
municipality of Bombay issued bonds and erected a convenient pier. 
We, alien republicans, now landed on that very wharf, not unmind- 
ful of our obligations to the Council of Bombay, or of our good 
fortune in coming after, and not before, Victoria's sailor son. We 
ascended an easy flight of stone steps to a plateau one hundred and 
fifty feet above the sea. This esplanade as well as the entire island 
is deeply shaded with the beautiful, round-topped Palmyra palm. 
A decrepit Irish soldier, with his family, in a bamboo shanty, 
thatched with banana and palm leaves, keeps watch and ward over 
the place. Passing to the centre of the plateau and turning to the 
right, we confronted a work of human art, gigantic and marvelous. 
It is a subterranean temple. The builders, beginning half-way up 
the mountain declivity, and cutting down perpendicularly, have 
removed the mountain-face to the depth of thirty feet, and to the 
width of three hundred feet. The perpendicular wall thus disclosed 
is of basalt. This rock, they have hewn and chiselled away to the 
very centre of the mountain, and wrought it into a temple with 
perfect architectural forms and just proportions. The excavation 
consists of four chambers, the central one is majestic with gateways, 




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CAVES OF ELEPHANTA. 449 

abutments, porches, columns, pilasters, cornices, and vaulted ceil- 
ings, as complete and perfect as if, instead of having been carved in 
the rock, they had been detached from it, framed and erected on 
the ground. While no architectural element is omitted, all are per- 
fectly finished. The broad pavement is as level and smooth as that 
of the rotunda at Washington. The ceiling needs no preparation to 
receive either fresco or gilding. The dome is spherical, while the 
columns upon which it rests, or seems to rest, have regular bases, 
bands, flutings, and capitals, though all alike are shaped from the 
undisturbed rock. We even thought it necessary to examine the 
lintels of the doors to see if they were not detached pieces of the 
rock itself. Standing in the porch or within the temple, and look- 
ing inward, you confront the farther wall. In its centre, a deep 
recess twenty feet square, reaching from floor to roof, is surmounted 
by a bold arch. Within this recess is a colossal figure, or combina- 
tion of figures, the triune god : Brahma representing the creative 
power, Yishnu the preserving power, and Siva the destroying 
power. Each of the figures is twice the human size. Brahma is 
looking forward in an attitude of calmness and contemplation ; at 
his feet is' a crouching lion. Yishnu rests on a bed of lotus-flowers. 
Siva in one hand wields a drawn sword, and in the other holds a 
cobra ready to strike. The gigantic group is completed by the 
accessories of dwarfs and inferior gods. The ceiling of the recess is 
decorated with a crowd of not less than fifty or sixty figures, such 
as, if found in a Christian temple, would be taken as representing 
angels. Every figure within the niche has a distinctive character, 
and is not deficient in force. But this group within the recess is 
only one group, the entire temple being a gallery full of like 
statuary. On either side of the principal hall or temple are lesser 
chambers or chapels, and the walls of these are covered with alle- 
gorical works, illustrating the transformations, incantations, battles, 
triumphs, marriages, and miracles of the several members of the 
Braminical trinity. It is the opinion of Dr. Bhau Daji that this 
temple was excavated about twelve hundred years ago. No won- 
der that it remains complete in its forms and proportions ! No 
storm can penetrate it, and no flood can invade it. Even the earth- 



450 BRITISH INDIA: 

quake has spared it. Not so the demon of religious zeal. The in- 
tolerant followers of the false prophet mutilated these heathen faces 
and forms in the fourteenth century, and the no less fanatical Por- 
tuguese, who came in the wake of the Mohammedans, finding the 
task of defacing with the hammer too slow, brought a # battery 
of cannon to the temple-door, and battered the stone gods. What 
human sentiment is so strong as that of devotion \ The passions 
of love, hate, and pride, have covered the surface of the earth with 
their monuments. But here, in this cave of Elephanta, devotion 
has written its sublimest faith in the very centre of the earth it- 
self! The chamber which is at the right of the temple, as you 
look inward, contains a spring of pure, ever-flowing water. The 
Bramins think it possesses a healing virtue, and it is among their 
fond conceits that the purifying water comes through a subterrane- 
ous passage from the Ganges. However this may be, the Irish 
custodian of the temple assured us that it is the " swatest wather 
for dhrinking in all India." When we looked at his suspicious 
blackened eye and damaged nose, we regretted for his sake that he 
does not confine himself to " that same." 

The cave-temple of Elephanta is by no means a solitary monu- 
ment. There are two others scarcely less spacious and elaborate 
on the same small island. In other parts of this coast, as well as 
in Ceylon, there are not only excavated temples of Brahma, but 
also of Buddha, of dimensions so vast and execution so marvellous 
as to throw these of Elephanta into the shade. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

AN EXCURSION TO GOA. 

A Voyage on the Coast of Malabar. — A Perilous Predicament. — Dubious Navigation. — 
Situation of Goa. — Official Courtesies. — History of Goa. — The Old City. — St. Francis 
Xavier. — Miraculous Cures. — Character of Xavier. — Public Institutions. — The Gov- 
ernor's Villa. — Historical Reminiscences. — A Goa Poet. — A Cordial Farewell. 

Off the Coast of Malabar, Aj)ril 19, 1871. — We were in a strait 
on Friday last. An excursion down this coast to ancient Goa, the 
first effective European settlement in India, and always the capital 
of the Portuguese Indian possessions, promised a pleasure not to be 
lost, and seemed a study not to be omitted. But Mr. Seward had 
engaged to dine with the Byculla Club of Bombay to-morrow, and 
the semi-weekly packet to Goa could not be relied upon. With 
twenty-four hours' knowledge of this dilemma, the Government 
fitted out a revenue-cutter lying in commission. The captain was 
unacquainted with the route, and an extra one was appointed ; 
crew, furniture, and provisions, were extemporized, and, to make 
assurance of an exact return doubly sure, we sailed on Saturday at 
sunset. 

The Camel, besides her proper British colors, was courte- 
ously invested with the stars and stripes, and we were accom- 
panied by Mr. Farnham, the United States consul. Proceeding 
merrily, with a speed of eight knots, we began to inquire about 
dinner and sleeping arrangements. Sea-sickness came earlier than 
dinner. The cabins were spacious enough, but unavailable. The 



452 BRITISH INDIA. 

vessel sat low in the water, and the ports were necessarily closed, 
the thermometer standing at ninety degrees. Cabins were impro- 
vised on deck by means of napping sails. These privations gave 
the voyage something of the zest of a picnic, and we endured 
them with the resolution to enjoy discomforts, usually practised on 
such occasions. 

Our double captaincy unanimously decided, the night being 
dark, that we should push directly out to sea. We pushed so far 
that it was not until noon on Sunday that we came back in sight 
of land. We proceeded until nightfall in full view of the Western 
Ghauts. Notwithstanding the loss of time during the previous 
night, we found ourselves on Sunday noon so far advanced that 
our Siamese captain determined to " slow down," that is to say, 
" slacken up," so as to avoid. reaching Goa before daylight the next 
morning. With the pleasing intimation that we should leave 
the ship at sunrise, we retired to our mattresses at nine o'clock, the 
crumbling Portuguese forts on the Goa shore looming up on the 
coast, and the disdained Bombay packet just before us, leading the 
way. Our sleep was " murdered " by a mutiny among the crew, 
which was only quelled when the leader was tied up at the fore- 
castle. Monday's dawn, instead of the summons to go ashore, 
brought blank consternation ! We were not at anchor in the har- 
bor, but once more afloat on the sea, no land in sight, neither of 
our navigators knew where, and, stranger still, neither knew how 
we came there. Sunrise gave not only light but an unmistakable 
object to steer by. Joy radiated from the faces of the captains ; and, 
for ourselves, nothing but our early training in the first of the 
ten commandments which came down from Sinai, prevented us 
from becoming Parsees and worshipping the fiery orb on the spot. 
We steered due east, and the first land-mark showed that we had 
left Goa twenty miles behind. We made it, however, though not 
without peril from hidden rocks, at eleven o'clock in the morning. 

If the gallant officers who had been waiting for us twelve long 
hours, in their tight, uncomfortable uniforms, were surprised to see 
us coming through a dangerous southern channel, as if from Mau- 
ritius, instead of the safe northern one from Bombay, their aston- 



ARRIVAL AT GOA. 453 

ishraent did not exceed that of our two commanders, who until this 
very time are unable to account for their error of navigation. The 
native pilot, they say, disobeyed their directions ; " there was sud- 
denly a strong outward current unknown in this sea before ; " more- 
over, " there is indicated in the chart just there an iron mountain, 
which deflected the needle ; " moreover and furthermore, " the 
ship's compass, useless in harbor movements, had not been ad- 
justed for this outside navigation." 

Two rivers, the Narwar and the Mormugoa, form a deep 
estuary, and the island of Goa, upon which the town is built, rises 
out of this estuary very much like Manhattan Island at the conflu- 
ence of the Hudson and East Rivers in the bay of New York. The 
green banks of both rivers are crowned with fortifications, which 
are well preserved, and with churches and convents, none of which 
are dilapidated, but of which some have been converted to secular 
uses. 

On reaching the bar we were boarded by the officer of the port, 
and delayed until the fort on shore delivered a salute in honor of 
Mr. Seward. Our flags dipped in acknowledgment, and an hour 
later we came to anchor before a quaint and picturesque little city. 
An extensive fortification standing immediately on the wharf is now 
the palace of the governor-general. The buildings, unique though 
plain, seem to speak from their open windows and graceful bal- 
conies a hospitable welcome. An infantry battalion was drawn up 
on the esplanade, and the river-shores were crowded with a swarthy 
but well-dressed and gentle-looking people. Mr. Seward was con- 
veyed by the governor- general's staff in a well-manned barge to 
the other shore, where he was welcomed by the Secretary of State, 
and received with military honors. The band employed on this 
occasion, although it consists exclusively of natives, excels any we 
have heard in India. Western arts and customs seem capricious 
in taking root in these strange countries. On our journey to 
Peking, we noticed that the band of Admiral Eodgers's flag-ship 
was composed chiefly of dark natives of Goa. They executed 
better than any other performers the " Charta," as they called the 
beautiful national air of Portugal. Associated as it is in our rec- 



454 BRITISH INDIA. 

ollections of those cold and tedious travels, it was peculiarly pleas- 
ing when that noble hymn burst upon us from the instruments of a 
full band of the same sympathetic race, in their own tropical home. 

Captain Major's family, the only American one residing here, 
divided the care of our entertainment with the governor-general, 
the Yiscount de Sao Januario. 

The Goa where we were received so kindly is only by deriva- 
tion the Goa of history. Ancient Goa stood eight miles higher, on 
the same left bank of the Narwar. Founded by Albuquerque, the 
most renowned of all the Portuguese admirals, after Yasco de Gama, 
it was laid out on an imperial scale, and surrounded by a wall and 
fortifications, which rendered it for more than a century impregna- 
ble. An immense population gathered there. It contained the mag- 
nificent palace of the viceroy, the college, the hospital, the archiepis-. 
copal see and the halls of the Inquisition, while on every attractive 
height was built a church, monastery, convent, or chateau. Armies 
two hundred thousand strong were repelled from its walls, and 
imposing embassies from the barbaric kings and princes of the East 
trod its spacious and shaded streets. One hundred and fifty years 
ago, it was found to be unhealthful and was abandoned. Although 
life has since disappeared from that once-busy stage, some remnants 
of its activity and glory remain. We proceeded in carriages over a 
firm and well-preserved causeway, which once resounded with the 
tramp of pageants and of armies, to the ruined city. By the road- 
side and in the neighboring jungle, moss-covered monumental 
crosses, decorated daily by pious hands with fresh flowers, indicate 
scenes of violence and suffering, perhaps of miracles or martyrdom, 
enacted here. Cocoa-nut groves and mango-orchards now shade 
grounds once covered by bazaars and hostelries. Here and there 
a deserted palace, closed but not yet in ruins, testifies of wealth and 
luxury passed away, and the curious tourist is warned not to pene- 
trate its mouldering courts and tangled gardens, lest he come un- 
aware upon the most venomous serpents of India. Of a hundred 
religious houses, only one convent remains, and that has a lone 
sisterhood of three nuns. A high, arched gate, overgrown with 
creepers, is all that exists of the viceregal palace. While the col- 



TOMB OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER. 455 

lege and hospital have been renewed in the new town, happily no 
trace of the Inquisition remains in either city. The Government 
has kept the cathedral and churches in repair. They are built in 
the style of the sixteenth century, and, though fine structures, they 
are less imposing and costly than the churches built by the Spaniards 
of the same period in Mexico and Soutli America. They are, never- 
theless, far superior to religious edifices in the United States. 

The Church of Bom Jesus contains the tomb of St. Francis 
Xavier. It will be remembered that he was associated with Igna- 
tius Loyola in establishing the Society of Jesus, and that he came 
out on his apostolate to India, even before the papal allowance of 
the new order was granted. Perhaps this church was the first of 
the many thousands which have arisen in all parts of the world, 
under the labors of that mysterious community which has been so 
indomitable and indefatigable while encountering so many vicissi- 
tudes. The mausoleum is an oblong pedestal of Carrara marble, 
ten feet high, panelled with bronze bas-reliefs, representing the 
miracles of the saint. Upon this pedestal is a sarcophagus of gilded 
copper, which contains the embalmed remains, and is enclosed in 
an elaborately-wrought case of silver. The Grand-duke of Tus- 
cany only expressed the reverence of Catholic Europe for Xavier, 
in presenting this exquisite monument to the Church of the Jesuits, 
which is so closely identified with his labors. The tomb stands in 
a vaulted chamber, the walls of which are graced with admirable 
devotional paintings, but unfortunately it is so small and dark that 
not only the pictures but the monument itself is deprived of its 
just effect. The sarcophagus is opened at long intervals by per- 
mission of the King of Portugal, and on these occasions deserted 
Goa is reanimated by hundreds of thousands of natives, assembled 
from all parts of Asia. It may well be believed, as we are told, 
that not only the faithful Catholics, but even the unconverted Hin- 
doos, confidently expect supernatural effects to follow from the 
contact then allowed with the sacred remains. India is filled with 
traditions of the saint, and the Jesuit writers have carefully 
collected, collated, and published them. According to these tradi- 
tions, St. Francis Xavier not only relieved the poor with money 



456 BRITISH INDIA. 

brought out from the depths of the sea, healed the sick, made 
the dumb to speak, cured the lame and blind, cast out devils, 
and raised the dead, by simple invocation of the mercy of God, 
but he performed more of those miracles than the Gospels record 
of the Saviour, and his chosen twelve apostles. A resident of 
Goa, reliable for intelligence and candor, told us that, when the 
sarcophagus was last opened, a lady well-known to him became the 
subject of a supposed miracle. Having been hopelessly lame from 
birth, she solicited parental leave to attend the ceremony and 
touch the venerated dead. Her skeptical parents refused ; she 
persisted, and in the moment of contact she became whole, and so 
remains. Our informant of course ascribes this extraordinary cure 
to the influence of her excited imagination. 

But the homage paid to the memory of Xavier may well be 
regarded without cavil or regret even by those whose education 
obliges them to reject his alleged miracles. He surpassed his spir- 
itual contemporaries in faith, hope, charity, patience, courage, zeal, 
and perseverance. He committed no crime, indulged no vices, and 
though he tolerated African slavery and the Inquisition in the East, 
it must be remembered they were the errors of his time, and he was 
less severe against the recusants of the Church than in self-condem- 
nation. It was his noble maxim that the Gospel is advanced more 
by the blood of martyrs than by the sweat of missionaries. He 
found India wholly a pagan and Mohammedan land, and by his 
teaching and example, using neither force nor fraud, he made more 
Christian converts than can be found on Indian soil at the present 
day. It was not, however, for St. Francis Xavier, nor the Jesuits, 
nor the Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, to bring India 
and the East into Christian civilization. It must be sadly admitted 
that this remains yet to be done. It is to be hoped, however, that 
the great work has begun in the humble schools for native men and 
women which have been opened under missionary auspices in 
various parts of the country. 

A dinner at the palace closed the day. Although it was at- 
tended by the provincial court, and supported by a military band, 
it was animated and cordial. The governor was eloquent in his 



THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 457 

admiration of the United States. A throne, which stands in the 
grand salon, although it has no occupant — the viceregal dignity 
having been abolished — is still respected on state occasions. What 
interested us more were the queer old portraits of viceroys, gov- 
ernors, generals, admirals, and missionaries. Need I say that we 
carefully studied the lineaments of Yasco de Gama, Dias, Cabral, 
Alureyda, Albuquerque, of Xavier and Loyola? An artistic per- 
formance of Chopin by a young secretary enchained us until a late 
hour. 

On the 18th we visited the public institutions. The military 
force consists of two battalions of artillery and two of infantry, 
maintained at an annual cost of two hundred thousand dollars. 
These seem quite enough for a territory of only a thousand 
square miles, with a population of four hundred thousand. The 
military academy trains one hundred and fifty cadets, through 
a seven years' course. The garrison barracks and hospital are 
excellent. We looked into the finance department. The reve- 
nue is six hundred thousand dollars. The salaries are low, and 
there is no complaint of taxes. The college of science and medi- 
cine is conducted by eleven professors, several of whom are natives 
of Goa, and is well attended. There are four newspapers, three of 
which are conducted by natives, and all in the Portuguese language. 
One-third of the population is Roman Catholic, the rest are Hin- 
doos, Mahrattas, and Mohammedans. The good order and perfect 
cleanliness which pervade the little city explain the curious fact 
that it supplies the foreign residents of all India with their best 
household servants. 

We drove with the governor to his suburban villa on the sum- 
mit of the cape which divides the two rivers. The palace was 
formerly a monastery. Its chapels are now reception-rooms and 
banqueting-halls. Its cloisters are card and billiard rooms. The 
garden supplying vegetables, fruits, and flowers, is still retained. 
The site was chosen with the customary sagacity of religious com- 
munities, who seldom fail to find material comforts while they se- 
cure the solitude needful for meditation, and natural associations 
which sustain enthusiasm. The place is not less adapted to its 



458 BRITISH INDIA. 

present use. There could "be no more refreshing retreat from the 
stagnant air and burning heat of the city than this breezy, rocky 
cliff, which breaks the ocean-tides, while it looks down upon the 
old town and the new, half buried in palms, mangos, and cypresses, 
and far up the primeval river-channels to their sources in the moun- 
tains, which are lost in the horizon. Our minds were crowded, in 
the hours we passed on the turreted veranda, with the thoughts of 
the events which had happened beneath it : of Camoens and his 
romantic career ; how, crossed in love at home, he came to this far- 
off and misty East to make by adventure a name with which to 
return and wed the maiden with the " sweetest eyes were ever 
seen ; " how, after shipwreck and amid privations and persecutions, 
he wrote here his " Lusiad," and then returned to his native land, 
only to find his mistress dead, and to die himself, of a broken heart, 
in an almshouse. We thought of the arrival of armed fleets from 
Lisbon, in the now quiet bay ; of the building and fortification of a 
great city ; of native armies gathered in siege around it — of the 
brave and chivalrous defenders who defeated and dispersed them ; 
of the expedition of squadrons for the conquest of Aden and Ormus, 
in the Arabian Sea ; of Malacca, the key of the Sea of China, and 
of the Moluccas in the Archipelago, and of their triumphant return 
laden with spoils ; of the homeward dispatch of argosies loaded with 
spices, pearls of Ceylon, and diamonds of Golconda ; of the coming 
in of the humble Jesuit missionaries, their fortunes and their fate, 
sometimes received with affection and gratitude, and often meeting 
the martyr's crown ; of the baptism of whole tribes, provinces, and 
nations ; of their subsequent relapse into their primitive idol-wor- 
ship ; of the enterprise of the colonists on land and sea, extending 
the fame and sway of Portugal, always brilliant, but ending in de- 
feat and overthrow at last, when they came into collision with 
European rivals equally ambitious and stronger than themselves. 
This, which is the story of Goa, is also the history of Portuguese 
colonization. Of the vast empire which Portugal established in 
both hemispheres on the track of the great discoverers, there re- 
main now only this little province of Goa, in India ; the already 
decaying city of Macao, in China ; and the yet barbarian colonies 



DEPAETUEE FEOM GOA. 459 

of St. Paul de Loando, and Mozambique, in Africa. Portugal won 
that empire bravely, she improved it as she could with the light 
she enjoyed, and she lost it chivalrously. The nations which 
have profited by her discoveries and conquests will not deny her 
honor and sympathy. 

An early dinner at Captain Major's was attended by the gov- 
ernor-general and other officers of the state, including M. Eiberio, 
a poet of whom it is said we are likely to hear more, through some 
translations by Longfellow. 

The hour of five, the first in which tide would serve, had been 
appointed for our departure. Mr. Seward, as usual, was proceeding 
promptly to the wharf, but was detained for a parting demonstra- 
tion. The governor addressed him with emotion ; Mr. Seward re- 
plied with equal feeling. The military saluted him, and then the 
barge conveyed us to our familiar deck. Even when the last of the 
forts had dipped its flag and fired its farewell guns, and the setting 
sun had left us only the hazy twilight of the tropics, signals were 
still seen waving adieux from the palace balconies and from the 
wharf. Whatever else of the ancient Portuguese character may 
have passed away with the decline of imperial power, the element 
of chivalrous courtesy certainly remains. 

The crew of the Camel is now obedient. The Hindoo helms- 
man steers faithfully, the ocean-currents flow smoothly, the iron 
mountain no longer diverts the needle, while the compass has 
been satisfactorily adjusted. Our captaincy is pleased with itself 
and with us. "We are equally satisfied, and go to our rest with the 
Bombay light shining brightly before us. Goa has been gained, 
and the Byculla Club is not " going to be disappointed." 



CHAPTEK XVII. 



LAST DAYS IN BOMBAY. 



The Byculla Club. — Mr. Seward's Speech. — His Grateful Acknowledgments to his Enter- 
tainers. — The Indies of the East and the Indies of the West. — Growing Civilization 
of the East. — A Progress Irresistible. — The New Concord. — Policy of the Anglo- 
Saxon Race. — Miss Wessner. — Departure from Bombay. 

Bombay, April 21st. — The Byculla Club is less a local society 
of Bombay than an association of the gentlemen who are engaged in 
the military and civil service throughout India. Not only Ameri- 
cans, but foreigners of all the Western nations, fraternize cordially 
in its circle. 

Its spacious and elegant rooms, highly illuminated, were filled 
last night, and the entertainment was attended by all the members 
in the city and many ladies. 

The Honorable Sir M. R. Westropp, Chief-Justice of Bombay, 
presided, and spoke of Mr. Seward's public life. Mr. Seward re- 
plied as follows : 

" I have been more than once heretofore kindly invited to meet 
societies in Asia, but those privileges were lost by reason either of 
fatigue, or some other exigency of travel. I have, therefore, 
accepted this courtesy of yours, as a social welcome tendered me by 
the Europeans residing in India, while at the same time my prepa- 
rations for an early departure oblige me to take my final leave of 
the East here. Having learned much and enjoyed more, I am 
oppressed with many grateful thoughts, though the time scarcely 



GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 461 

serves for a full utterance of one. "When the spring fills up, how- 
ever, we must choose the vent through which the stream shall flow. 
First, I must thank you sincerely, profoundly, for bringing me to 
an acquaintance with your enlightened and spirited association, 
for bestowing upon me the honor of its membership, and for 
giving me this felicitous expression of its elegant and generous 
hospitality. I have been frequently asked, " What do you think 
of Bombay ? " I answer now : " The Byculla Club is a just expo- 
nent of a great and growing Oriental metropolis." Two hundred 
years ago this magnificent bay came to a King of England as the 
dowry of a Portuguese princess. "Who could then have foreseen 
that, under British rule, it would become the gate of the East, the 
Constantinople of a new historical era % Yet, this high destiny is 
one of the assured and immediate results of the Suez Canal. I 
shall, indeed, continue my past endeavorsto hasten on a ship-canal 
across the Isthmus of Darien — a work which can hardly fail to give 
new importance to queenly Calcutta. But India is a vast coun- 
try, and can maintain two great commercial cities, as the world 
already has need of two interoceanic channels of commerce. 

" Gentlemen, I owe manifold acknowledgments outside the 
Byculla Club. Please suffer me to make them here ; to his excel- 
lency the viceroy, and many members of the Council of India — to 
the authorities of Madras, Bengal, the Northwest Provinces, the 
Central Provinces, the Punjab and Bombay — to the Maharajahs of 
Benares and Putteeala, and to many other native statesmen and 
scholars — for attentions which have made my travels in India 
equally a tour of pleasure and an interesting study. If I could 
think it possible that what I may now say could pass the confines 
of British India, I would add not less grateful acknowledgments to 
the Portuguese authorities of ancient Goa, the authorities of the 
vigorous Straits Settlement, and the government of the marvellously 
fruitful Netherlands Indies, as well as the native governments of 
just awakening China and Japan. Thus far in a journey round 
the world, I have had the pleasant part of St. Paul's experience on 
his voyage from Joppa to Rome : ' So when this was done, others 
also came, who also honored us with many honors.' 



462 BRITISH INDIA. 

" Gentlemen, immediately after the Western discoveries of Co- 
lumbus, and the Eastern discoveries of Yasco de Gama, a new and 
significant, though inaccurate nomenclature obtained in geography. 
The world was at once divided into two parts : one, the old and well 
known, the other, the newly-discovered or explored Indies, which 
embraced nearly all of Asia, and the whole of America. 

" The old and well-known Western nations came suddenly under 
a new and vast responsibility. This responsibility included noth- 
ing less than a regeneration of an effete civilization in the so-called 
Indies of Asia, and the establishment of an original civilization in 
the so-called Indies of America. A. profound sense of this respon- 
sibility sustained the labors and shaped the characters of Columbus 
and De Gama, of Chatham and Burke, of Washington and Jeffer- 
son, of Xavier and Iieber. Tell me not, therefore, that this re- 
sponsibility is merely a conceit of an ardent imagination. 

" It is, I trust, gentlemen, to a sympathy which exists between 
the now ruling classes of the East and my countrymen, in this 
elevated and humane sentiment, that I am indebted for this consid- 
eration which it has given me so much pleasure to acknowledge. 
We may well, gentlemen, cherish and cultivate it. It need not make 
us one whit the less British, American, French, Portuguese, Italian, 
Danish, German, Dutch, or whatever else we may have been, or 
love to be, to accept the simple and sublime truth that comes down 
to us as an instruction from the throne above, that whatever govern- 
ments we may establish or maintain amid the debris of Asiatic 
empires or in the chaos of America, those governments must be 
established and maintained not alone nor chiefly for the advantage 
of the foreign founders, but for the welfare and happiness of the 
native races among whom they are founded. 

" Despite skepticism, avarice, and reactionary resistance, civiliza- 
tion in America, the Indies of the West, is a manifest success. I 
am happy to declare, as the result of my observation, the conviction 
that regeneration in Asia is equally proving itself to be a success. 
There are, indeed, parts of Asia where Western ideas, principles, 
and inventions, are only tolerated with undissembled reluctance. 
These are the regions which were last reached by Europeans. But 



THE FEW CONCORD. 463 

I know, on the other hand, those ideas, principles, and inventions, 
are accepted and embraced cordially in other portions of the East, 
which have been more early and conveniently accessible. Witness 
Japan, the coast and rivers of China, Java, Burmah, Madras, Ben- 
gal, Goa, and Bombay. There modern civilization is triumphant. 
Progress is irresistible. The inventions of steam, railroads, tele- 
graphs > and missionary colleges and schools, have come in good 
time to enable us to carry on that work of regeneration peacefully 
and humanely, which has so often been prosecuted blunderingly as 
well as cruelly, with the aid of gunpowder. It cannot be long 
before the British Government will be relieved of the necessity of 
maintaining an Indian army to protect their possessions, and a 
European army to watch the Indian one. 

"You must have noticed, gentlemen, as I have, a new and 
pleasing trait in the temper of our age. ' Europe does, indeed, still 
remain a theatre of international jealousies and ambitions, but I 
think all the nations of the West have come at last to an harmoni- 
ous agreement that European conflicts shall no longer be extended 
into Asia, Polynesia, or America." (" Hear ! hear ! ") 

" You like this new concord, gentlemen — I know the reason : 
because it is the harbinger of peace and progress in the East. I 
like it for the same reason, and also for another : it is the saving 
' Monroe doctrine ' of America. I am, of course, aware that the 
assembly before whom I stand, and to whom I am so much indebt- 
ed, consists largely of Britons. I am an American. Our nations 
are severed — our extraction largely the same. The very work of 
extending modern civilization in the two hemispheres, of which so 
large a share of responsibility has devolved upon each nation, has a 
tendency, perhaps, to make us rivals. There are passionate and 
prejudiced men in both countries who would aggravate this rivalry 
into hatred, but such a temper is in any case insular and provin- 
cial, and unworthy the matured genius of either nation. I am not 
sentimental enough to rely on a distant consanguinity, which is 
daily becoming more remote, as an enduring bond of friendship 
between our two countries, but I have always seen that, situated as 
they are, on opposite sides of a great ocean, equally dependent on a 



464 BRITISH INDIA. 

peaceful commerce with the whole world, speaking the same lan- 
guage, and holding the same religious faith, equally educated above 
the powers and blandishments of despotism, and conscious of their 
common responsibility in regard to universal progress, the welfare 
and happiness of each demand that they shall be friends, and man- 
kind cannot consent to their alienation. Far from thinking that 
the Anglo-Saxon race, so proudly and happily advanced, will fall 
into internecine conflict now or hereafter, I, on the contrary, 
steadfastly believe that neither of its two great branches will 
lose any thing of power or prestige while their colonies are 
increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the waste places of the 
globe. 

"My parting words to yon, gentlemen, therefore, are: Let mu- 
tual respect and cordial friendship prevail between Great Britain 
and the United States of America, until British scorn of arbitrary 
government and American love of educated liberty shall encircle 
the earth ! " 

April 22d. — It is a day of leave-taking, and a busy one. A 
large representation of the intellectual society of Bombay, not only 
British, Americans, and Continental Europeans, have been with us, 
but also Parsees, Mohammedans, and Hindoos. All alike express 
their sympathies with Mr. Seward, and their appreciation of the 
sentiments he uttered the day before yesterday. 

While we were at Shanghai, Miss Wessner, a Bavarian lady, 
then travelling in that country, gave an interesting account of her 
journey to Peking. When we returned to that capital, she had 
gone to Java. All the way hither she has been flitting away just 
before us, but we have failed to overtake her. To-day the bird was 
caught, and a pleasing acquaintance established. She exhibits 
great force of character in making alone an exploration of the 
world, which is universally thought to require masculine energy. 
Just at the moment of making this friendship, which promises so 
much, we are grieved with the intelligence of the death of a friend, 
and our countrywoman, Alice Cary; not less gifted than true, 
brave, and womanly. . 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FROM BOMBAY TO ADEN. 

Once more at Sea. — The Steamer Deccan. — Mr. Seward's Remarks on India. — Natural 
Religion. — The Characteristics of the Hindoo M : nd. — England's Hold on India. — 
The Regeneration of India. — The Island of Socotra. — Arrival at Aden. — An Extinct 
Volcano. — Wise Old England ! — A New Stage of the Voyage. — Red-Haired Negroes. 

Steamer Deccan, April 25th. — Once more at sea ! But where ? 
The waters which roll between the Indian Peninsula and the Ara- 
bian Promontory are the Arabian Sea. The waters south of them 
are the Indian Ocean. We left the Indian Peninsula behind us on 
the 22d, and are now making a bee-line from the Malabar coast to 
Aden, on the southwest coast of Arabia. On which of the two 
seas are we? Our steamer is the largest one of the Peninsular and 
Oriental line. Having three keels, she rides the sea as squarely 
and as smoothly as an American side- wheeler. Our fellow-passen- 
gers being English, and many of them acquaintances made in India, 
we are not suffered to feel that we are strangers. 

While watching the flying-fish skipping over the unruffled sea 
this morning, which of all the reflections that occurred to us dur- 
ing our sojourn in India shall we record 1 Mr. Seward said : 
" India has a very imperfect and unsatisfactory civilization, but it 
never had a better one. The native population could never 
achieve a better one if left to themselves. Their whole hope of a 
higher civilization depends on the instruction and aid of the West- 
ern nations, and, taking circumstances as they are, that hope de- 



466 BRITISH INDIA. 

pencls chiefly on the guidance and aid of Great Britain. It is a sub- 
ject for profound study how it has happened that thus far India has 
had an experience so different from that of the nations of the West. 
Although the "Western nations have not at all times been progres- 
sive, they have, nevertheless, as a whole family, been continually 
advancing. How is this to be accounted for ? The first intellect- 
ual want of which man is conscious is, not that of a guidance in 
obtaining a supply of the necessaries of life, but a desire to know 
who and what is the power that created him, and on whom he is 
entirely dependent. Man feels himself capable of seeing and en- 
joying good, and also of doing and suffering evil. He asks, What 
is good, what is evil ? When do good and evil come, and how ? 
Where does the Supreme Power reside, and what is it ? Is it one, 
or is it many ? Is it altogether good, or altogether evil ? How 
can the Supreme Power be both good and evil ? Has the Supreme 
Power created only good and been baffled by an equal or superior 
power that has interjected evil ? How could a power that is 
supremely good create evil ? Does the Supreme Power delight in 
virtue and the happiness of mankind, or does it derive pleasure 
from their crimes and suffering % The Supreme Power has so far 
revealed itself in ISTature that man can attain to the knowledge that 
it is a single power, that there is one God, not many gods, and that 
this one God requires from man the practice of virtue, and desires 
his happiness. This truth must be seized upon and become a 
spiritual conviction. Until a national mind grasps and cherishes 
this spiritual conviction, it must ever continue to revolve in a con- 
dition of uncertainty and doubt about the providential appoint- 
ments of good and evil, which render it incapable of a firm ad- 
vance in knowledge and civilization. This is only saying, in other 
words, that such a nation becomes bewildered in the subtleties of 
metaphysics. This bewilderment has hitherto been, and yet 
remains, a condition of the people of Hindostan. All studious 
observers have agreed that the Hindoos are not intellectually in- 
ferior to the Western nations. They early framed a language, the 
Sanscrit, which the learned of every nation unite in asserting is 
superior to every other vehicle of human thought ; they have ethics 



THE HINDOO MIND. 467 

equal to those of Confucius, and his are equal to the morals of 
Plato. They have many municipal laws as just as the common 
law. They have skill in productive art and manufacture, which 
has made their fabrics objects of cupidity and envy among all 
nations. Their literature of fiction furnished a model for the 
'Arabian Nights Entertainments' as well as the poems of Ari- 
osto and Chaucer. They gave to Greece the science of notation, 
and they have always excelled in mathematics generally, and prac- 
tical hydraulics. Nevertheless, the Hindoos have never known 
how to constitute a civil government, or to organize a beneficial 
ecclesiastical system. They have never even written a history of 
themselves, unless we accept, as such, fables which cover a chrono- 
logical period of many millions of years, with four successive ages : 
first, one of perfect human strength, purity, and happiness ; second, 
one of a slight admixture of weakness, rendering human govern- 
ment necessary ; third, an equal admixture of vice and virtue ; and, 
fourth, the predominance of evil, which has only endured five 
thousand years of its appointed term of four hundred and thirty- 
three thousand ! Unable to establish a plausible mythology, they 
require us, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, to accept 
a pantheon of thirty-three millions of gods ! It is not for us to 
determine whether the pertinacious metaphysical bias of the Hin- 
doos is natural to the Hindoo mind, or is accidental. Its fruits are 
palpable enough. They are, a persistent adhesion to the Pytha- 
gorean theory of transmigration — a theory which equally subverts 
the relation of man to brute, and the relation of both man and 
brute to the common Creator ; a degradation and debasement of 
woman, which not only exclude her from society, but render her 
incapable of it ; caste, which extirpates cooperation, emulation, and 
charity, annihilates the inherent conviction of the equal rights of 
manhood, and delivers all governments over to the caprices of 
ambition and the chances of anarchy. The remedy for India is 
and can be nothing less than a regeneration of the Hindoo mind. 
The Mogul conquerors attempted this by teaching the Mohamme- 
dan faith, and enforcing their instructions by the sword of the 

prophet. They failed even to establish a severe despotism. The 
36 



468 BRITISH INDIA. 

superior political science and greater toleration of the British 
nation enable them at least to rule India in peace, but not without 
a constant exhibition of military power. It is but too apparent 
that the native population of India have not yet, under British 
rule, established any firm advance. If the British Government 
should withdraw itself from Hindostan to-day, the country must 
inevitably relapse into the wretched condition in which it was 
found by the Europeans. But Great Britain has a difficult task. 
India cannot be colonized by British subjects, or European races, 
as North America and Australia were. Climate forbids this, even 
if caste does not. On the other hand, Great Britain, now con- 
stantly present in India, and in all parts of it, with her arts and 
her arms, protects and cooperates with the philanthropists who 
come as missionaries and educators. These can hardly fail under 
such circumstances to produce a change in the practices, habits, and 
languages, of the people of India. The work of regeneration must 
indeed be slow, for it requires nothing less than the destruction of 
caste, the restoration of woman, and the conversion of the natives, 
if not to Christianity, at least to a religion more rational and prac- 
tical than the Braminical faith. Through this slow process, the 
idea of the dignity and rights of man may be expected to develop. 
It may seem sanguine to expect that, among the vicissitudes inher- 
ent in all political affairs, British control in India will last long 
enough to secure this great consummation. But, even if this 
should not be so, the Western powers which should relieve Great 
Britain in India must necessarily assume her responsibilities. 
I do not think her situation in India precarious ; certainly no Euro- 
pean power has now the ability to displace her from the position 
she has attained through long perseverance and at great cost. The 
perils of British authority in India, if there are any, are those 
which threaten the stability and peace of the realm. So long as 
Great Britain shall be content to employ Sepoys, and subsidize 
native princes, she will be quite safe in India, and during all that 
time the habit of submission to British law may be expected to 
increase, and so reduce gradually the difficulties of the situation. 
We have not found the British residents in India one-half so hope- 



ISLAND OF SOOOTRA. 469 

ful of the regeneration of the country as this, but all great and 
benevolent enterprises, however slow in progress, are sure to be 
successful at last. The regeneration of India is an old talk of the 
Western nations. It dates from the invasion of Alexander. It 
was the task of the Mohammedans. Caste and superstition are far 
less omnipotent in India now than they were two thousand years 
ago, four hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago, nor is the con- 
dition of the people as low now as it was at any of those periods." 

Indian Ocean, April 26th. — "We are just passing the island of 
Socotra, which belongs to the Sultan of Muscat. It is commer- 
cially known for its exports of aloes and the gum of the dragon's- 
blood tree. Admiral Cockburn recently visited the island with a 
view of suppressing a small slave-traffic which is carried on there 
with traders from the opposite African coast. So we see that, 
although the African slave-trade has been abolished among the civ- 
ilized nations, it still lingers among those which have not been re- 
claimed from barbarism. The admiral found the inhabitants of the 
capital, Tamarinda, little better than aborigines, though they speak 
the Arabic and profess Mohammedanism. Before Mohammed, 
however, they were not pagans, for St. Francis Xavier, in relating 
his voyage to India, states that his vessel entered the harbor of 
Socotra, and was detained there many weeks for provisions and re- 
pairs. He found the inhabitants hospitable and docile Christians, 
using a ritual-service which they claimed to have been left them by 
the Apostle St. Thomas, to whom they attributed their conversion. 
They had never heard of the Pope, nor even of the division of the 
Church between the Greek Patriarch, whom they acknowledged, 
and the Bishop of Koine. 

April 27th. — After eight months' travel in the incomprehen- 
sible East, with its stagnant civilization, we are now passing into 
another region still more incomprehensible and hopeless. 

On our right hand is Yemen, once " Arabia the happy," and 
still known in poetry as a land of light and beauty, but now the 
dwelling of Arab hordes, who are sinking every day deeper into 



470 BRITISH INDIA. 

barbarism. On the left, we are passing Soumala, that part of 
Africa which stretches from Mozambique to Abyssinia. It is 
inhabited by aboriginal negro tribes, which, from the beginning of 
time, have defied civilization. Thus we have the same experience, 
in our approach to Europe, as when we listen to a vague and con- 
fused prelude which precedes the full harmony of the symphony. 

Aden, April 28th. — Elevated plains on the Arabian coast, too 
distant for minute observation, were our landmarks as we neared 
Aden. 

Mauy centuries ago — we must consult geology to know how 
many — a great fire was pent up in the lowest depths of the prom- 
ontory that now bears the name of Aden. That subterranean fire, 
becoming at last uncontrollable, burned the whole promontory out, 
and left it upside-down. The top of the hill was gone, and nothing 
remained but a huge cylindrical bowl, six miles in diameter at the 
bottom, with a rim fifteen hundred feet high. No one knows what 
that convulsion of Nature was for, any more than " Caspar " knew 
what the battle of Blenheim was about. Everybody, however, said 
that Blenheim was a " famous victory," and everybody agrees that 
Aden was a great volcano. Aden, thus hollowed into basin-shape, 
is joined to the Arabian coast by a low and very narrow isthmus — 
a place so entirely desolate it has never before been our fortune to 
see. On it, or in it (which will you have ?), there is not a tree nor 
a plant, except where, here and there, is a patch which man's hand 
has planted, scarcely bigger than that hand, and which he continues 
to water daily. The Portuguese discoverers stopped here on their 
voyages of exploration. They found here, as at Socotra, a colony 
of Syrian Christians. The Mohammedans from Mecca invaded 
them with fire and sword. They invoked relief and protection 
from the Portuguese Indian capital at Goa. The Portuguese in- 
tervention proved ineffectual, and the promontory remained under 
native Arabian sway, and ultimately came to be a province of Mus- 
cat. The kings of Muscat lost it, as they lost every thing, and the 
promontory remained under the control of native chiefs. The 
British Government early saw its importance to their Indian do- 



ADEN". 



471 



minions, but awaited an opportunity. In 1839, under the pretext 
of redressing an insult, Great Britain, with sword in one hand, and 
a liberal purse in the other, seized the promontory and fortified it. 




It is now used as a coaling-station in the European voyages to 
India, whether they are made around the Cape of Good Hope, or 
through the Red Sea. Aden commands the latter navigation, and 
in this ' sense is the key to India and the whole East, as Singa- 
pore is the key to China, Japan, the Archipelago, and Australia. 
Aden is politically dependent, not directly on the Home Govern- 
ment, but on the presidency of Bombay, and is held and main- 
tained at the cost of the government of British India. 

Wise old England ! How she fortifies her Island Realm, and 
yet all the while develops and improves the energies of her people, 
while she does not hesitate to undertake the police regulation of the 



472 BRITISH INDIA. 

world ! She knows, moreover, when and where and how to estab- 
lish the necessary police-stations. If jealous of the United States, 
what could she desire more than that they shall be content with 
complaining of the Alabama grievances, hesitate at taking a police- 
station in Alaska, and utterly refuse to take one, even though 
offered, in the West Indies ? That hesitation and refusal recall 
President Lincoln's story of the intrusion of the Universalists into 
the town of Springfield. The several orthodox churches agreed 
that their pastors should preach down the heresy. One of them 
began his discourse with these emphatic words : " My brethren, 
there is a dangerous doctrine creeping in among us. There are 
those who are teaching that all men will be saved ; but, my dear 
brethren, we hope for better things ! " 

Aden is a fortification and harbor, and nothing more. The 
fortification is without a model, and there is no duplicate of it, for 
the simple reason that the volcano shaped it. All that science had 
to do was, to perfect what the volcano left unfinished. The Gov- 
ernment has simply hewn the concave rocky surface of the crater 
into bastions, palisades, covered ways, parapets, martello-towers, 
and castellated batteries, so as to repel approach from the sea, on 
every side, and at the same time to command every foot of the 
interior area. The base of the interior area has two depressions, 
doubtless produced by two distinct eruptions, separated by a bar- 
rier of rock, indicating that there must have been two volcanoes. 
The larger area of these excavations contains the town of Aden, 
the other the arsenal. A passage which has been hewn through 
this volcanic rock connects the arsenal with the barracks in the 
town. This passage has a ditch along its side, parallel massive 
walls on both sides, and a battery at each end, commanding the 
plain in either direction. The outer sides of the circular mountain 
are so steep and so indented that they furnish deep and convenient 
bays for safe anchorage at their base. The rocky precipices which 
enclose the crater leave no sufficient space for barracks or dwell- 
ings. The population of Aden, including all classes, is contracted, 
therefore, within the basin, and so under control of the fortifica- 
tions. You reach this basin, not by driving under the encircling 



A NEW DEPASTURE. 473 

rirn and rising within, nor by climbing over it, but by a road hewn 
through the rim itself. Some military critics among our British 
acquaintance tell us that these defences are not impregnable. 
Mr. Seward asks, "But can they not easily be made so % " They 
assent. " That," he says, " is all that is required of any fortifica- 
tion." The force at present stationed here is only one regiment. 

The latitude of Aden is 12° north. The heat is so constant, as 
well as so intense, as to suggest the apprehension of new subter- 
ranean fires. Sometimes three years pass without the blessing of 
rain. It is, therefore, a severe study of the government to pro- 
vide fresh water for town, garrison, and shipping. The earlier 
owners of Aden had a considerable city within the basin, which 
they supplied with water by collecting the rain which occasionally 
fell on the crests and interior declivities, and conducting it to a 
dozen tanks or reservoirs. The water thus gathered and hoarded 
from tropical tempests would be sufficient, if left to its natural flow, 
to deluge the bottom of the basin. These reservoirs remain in per- 
fect preservation, and are admired for their masonry. The walls of 
each bear a tablet on which is stated its capacity in gallons. The 
supply furnished by these ancient reservoirs is quite inadequate 
to the present demand of the town, which is provided for by the 
use of steam-condensers of sea-water. It is a curious thing to see 
English artisans here using coal from Cornwall, to extract water 
from the ocean to slake the thirst of the savages of Asia and Africa. 
Who shall question that the British people are a commercial one, 
when he learns that the government at Aden sells the water, which 
it thus manufactures, at a penny a gallon ? 

"We realize here that we have reached a new stage of our round- 
the-world voyage. We are leaving, rather, let us say, we have left 
the far East and the South behind us. Though not yet arrived at 
the West and the North, we are on their confines. Not one Mon- 
golian or Malay do we see, only a few Hindoos and an individual 
Parsee, who applies to Mr. Seward to be appointed consul of the 
United States. The people are Arabs, Turks, swarthy Jews, and 
Abyssinians ; the dominating races, Abyssinians and Soumalans. 
The Hindoos are servants ; the Jews, bankers and pawnbrokers ; 



474 BRITISH INDIA. 

the Arabs and Abyssinian s, traders in coffee, frankincense, myrrh, 
amber, and ostrich-feathers. The Arabs also supply the people 
with fruit, mostly dates, and with the mutton of the Berber sheep. 
This small animal is invariably white, with a black head. The 
Soumalans are not prepossessing in appearance. We happened to 
be in our state-rooms when the Deccan came to anchor. These 
natives swarmed thickly around the steamer, in the smallest and 
most rickety of all boats and rafts, to see if happily some passenger 
might want them, either to carry baggage ashore for a penny, or to 
dive into the sea for the same price. Before we were aware, they 
were climbing over the ports, naked, except at the waists, peering 
with their large, yellow-black eyes into the ship — black as Milton's 
darkness, strong and lithe, with great white teeth, flat noses, low 
foreheads, and thick hair, curly, and varying in color from carrot- 
red to tow-white — Scandinavian hair on African heads ! At the 
instant they appeared at the vessel's side, the command rang 
through the ship, " Close the ports ! " and a guard was stationed on 
deck to prevent their apprehended larcenies. Failing to find em- 
ployment as porters, they passed the whole day diving into the sea. 
On shore we found invariably the same light hair on the heads of the 
same race. " Yerily," we said, " though in the times of Jeremiah 
' the leopard could not change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his 
skin,' the latter has since that time learned to change the color of 
his hair." The Soumalans are laborers, that is to say, the women 
are. Blessed are the customs of these aboriginal Africans, far 
more blessed than those of semi-civilized Asia. These Soumalan 
women, with their glistening white teeth, red lips, and yellow eyes, 
are the only women we have seen in the enjoyment of personal 
freedom since we left the United States, except the Mongolians in 
the Nan-Kow Pass. This enjoyment is not perhaps too dearly pur- 
chased, even at the cost of performing the servile labor by which 
their black lords live. 

The buildings here are constructed of lava-rock, without any 
pretension to elegance or even convenience. The governor is a 
gentleman of long experience, extensive information, and great 
candor. The fortunate coincidence of finding Admiral Cockburn 



RED-HAIRED MEN. 475 

here with the Forte is especially gratifying. We have passed 
the day on shore, and concerted a plan for a future and hopeful 
correspondence. 1 

It is not always safe to trust to fellow-passengers, or hastily- 
made acquaintances, for an explanation of what you find curious in 
foreign travel. We inquired of every one how it happens that these 
black men of Soumala have red or tow hair. The first answer we 
received was, that they are the "beaux" of Africa, that they dye 
their hair to make themselves attractive. Others answered that 
the race are red-haired men. The true explanation was given by the 
governor, but it requires some caution in setting it down. Water 
is scarce in this burning climate ; the Soumalans use lime as a sub- 
stitute, and this effects two important savings : one, the expense of 
soap ; the other, the cost of a fine-tooth comb. 

"Oh, tell me, where is fancy bred — 
In the heart or in the head ? " 

It has often been a study of ours, Where are fashions bred % 
We think we have found out that the fashion of long-pointed finger- 
nails, now so much the vogue in Europe, is borrowed from the 
elite of China. Prince Kung's nails are so long and so exquisitely 
cultivated as to discourage emulation in European diplomatic cir- 
cles ; and all the gold-dust, diamond-dust, or dyes of Paris, are inef- 
fectual, compared with the lime-wash of Soumala, for bleaching 
hair. 

1 March 21, 18*72.— It is with deep sorrow that we record the death of this chivalrous 
and pious gentleman. He fell a victim to the Indian climate. 



PART Y. 
EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE RED SEA AND SUEZ CANAL. 

The Gate of Tears. — The Rock of Perim. — The Port of Mecca. — Imaginary Terrors. — 
Pleasant Weather. — The Coasts of the Red Sea. — The Division of the Races. — A 
Refreshing Atmosphere. — The Track of the Israelites. — Suez. — The Ancient Canal. 
— The New Canal. — Its Inauguration. — Its Prospects. 

Steamer Deeean, Red Sea, April 30th. — Last night we came 
through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb (the Gate of Tears). Though 
we had a growing moon, we were unable to discern either shore, or 
the Rock of Perim, long famous for its supply of tortoise-shell, and 
rendered notorious, in our own time, by the abortive attempt of the 
French to secure it as a counter-salient to Aden. We are quite 
sure that, with the aid of a strong glass, reenforced by a more pow- 
erful faith, we discerned this morning the Arabian shore, and even 
the minarets of some town. We are now sailing past a series of 
low, sandy, uninhabited islands which lie off the Abyssinian shore. 

May 3d. — We have just passed Jiddah, the port of Mecca. 
Although some of the European powers manage, in spite of the 
fanatical ferocity of the natives, to maintain consulates there, the 
port is visited only by Egyptian craft. On the western shore, we 
have taken leave of Abyssinia, and now we make the towering 
peak, Ras-Elba, which tells us that we have come far upward along 
the desert shores of Nubia. From the day we formed our first ac- 
quaintance with European sojourners in the East, at Yokohama, 



480 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the one peril of our Western voyage, which was represented as the 
most fearful, has been the scorching climate of the Red Sea. We 
have been told that the steamer, driving before the wind, often re- 
verses its course to procure relief, and that passengers die in their 
cabins, merely from the oppression of the atmosphere. We as con- 
stantly opposed these fears, because we knew that latitude would be 
in our favor, and we thought we might expect to meet reviving 
breezes from the Mediterranean. We were right ; not the Pacific 
Ocean, nor even the Indian Ocean, furnished us a more pleasant 
voyage than the Red Sea. The surface ruffled by the gentlest 
of zephyrs, its waves, this morning, reflect rainbows broken with 
myriads of prisms, as brilliant and as distinct as those which, on a 
summer day, dance in the spray below the cataract at Niagara. It 
is not easy, perhaps, to ascertain on what grounds this great gulf, 
twelve hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide, acquired, 
so early as the time of Herodotus, the name of Red Sea. Probably 
it was so named from the banks of coral which underlie its waters, 
and which render its navigation dangerous. Certainly the water is 
not red ; this morning it assumes a hue of emerald-green. 

Pleasant as the voyage is, however, no one expresses a desire to 
explore either coast of the Red Sea. The reason is, that such an 
attempt would be dangerous. On the Arabian shore, the inhabi- 
tants are relapsing into barbarism ; while, on the African shore, 
the people have never been reclaimed from the savage state. This, 
therefore, is the most forlorn region through which we pass on our 
voyage. Nevertheless, not only history, but even revelation, is at 
fault, if we are not just now nearing the cradle of civilization. 
How melancholy a thought it seems, that while we find prosperity, 
improvement, and progress, or at least philanthropic effort, attend- 
ed with hope in all parts of Asia through which we have passed, as 
well as on the steppes of Northern Europe, and in the most desert 
parts of America — and indeed civilization reclaiming the islands of 
the sea near the North and South Poles — yet darkness continually 
gathers in this, the oldest and most favored, region of the earth ! 
This must have happened because the two great divisions of the 
human family, the white races and the dark races, meet here on the 



DIVERGENCE OF THE RACES. 481 

opposite shores of the Red Sea, and the opposite banks of the Nile. 
They did not commingle, and they could not remain together. 
They parted, perhaps by consent, more probably by instinct, the 
dark races retaining Africa, and, moving southward and eastward, 
peopling India, Burmah, Thibet, China, Japan, the Archipelago, 
Oceanica, and Western America ; the Caucasian race, on the con- 
trary, leaving Asia as well as Africa to their dark competitors, 
spread themselves continually northward and westward on the 
European Continent, the islands of the Atlantic, and the eastern 
American shores. The shores of the Red Sea have been practically 
abandoned by both races. How strangely this divergence of the 
white and the dark races perplexes the problem of the ultimate civ- 
ilization and unity of mankind ! The darker races, following the 
light of Nature, and rejecting or extinguishing that of revelation, 
have stumbled, and are scarcely making any progress since the sep- 
aration. The white races, more willingly accepting the greater 
light, though they also have stumbled, have reached a higher plane. 
Man can go no further in unravelling that perplexity. The designs 
of Providence are not unintelligible, but they are not man's 
ways. 

May 5th. — How refreshing and invigorating is this cool atmos- 
phere, after the intemperate heat we endured so long in India ! 
We are now bearing westwardly into the Gulf of Suez — the west- 
ern of the two gulfs which divide the Red Sea at its upper termina- 
tion. The eastern one is Akabah. The Gulf of Suez contracts 
gradually from forty miles to ten in width. The African coast of 
the Gulf of Suez is a desert table-land, rising into equally sterile 
mountains. These plains and mountains divide the Red Sea from 
the fertile valley of the Nile. We suppose that we have already 
crossed the path the Israelites took in their miraculous passage. 
We need not, however, have come here to learn that the track can- 
not now be precisely ascertained. The topography of the region 
so far supports the Scripture account as to indicate that the exiles 
from Goshen might most naturally have come down the western 
bank of the Gulf of Suez, and thence across the gulf to the end of 



482 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the Sinaitic promontory ; thence they would have passed through 
Edom and Moab, now Arabia Petrsea, along the eastern shore of the 
Dead Sea to the mouth of the Jordan. If we suppose, on the con- 
trary, that they travelled around the head of the Gulf of Suez, their 
journey would have been much longer and more exposed to pur- 
suit by Pharaoh, but in that case it would lose altogether its mar- 
vellous character. If we assume that they crossed through the wa- 
ters, it is purely absurd to suppose that any landmarks or traces of 
the miraculous passage could now be found. It is not so with 
their march northward from the head of the Red Sea. Sinai and 
IToreb are two of a cluster of yellow mountain-peaks, which crown 
the peninsula and divide the Gulf of Akabah from the Gulf of 
Suez. While it is certain that we are at this moment looking from 
the deck of our steamer upon both of these celebrated mountains, 
it is nevertheless impossible to identify them. On the western 
shore of the Gulf of Akabah is the port bearing that name. It is 
not doubtful, however, that this same Akabah is the Ezion-geber 
of sacred history. It is no unimportant part that this place, now so 
obscure, has held in the progress of human society. 

" And when we passed by from our brethren the children of 
Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from 
Elath, and from Ezion-geber, we turned and passed by the way 
of the wilderness of Moab." 

"And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, 
which is beside Elath, on the shore of the Reel Sea, in the land of 
Edom." 

" Jehoshaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold : 
but they went not ; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber." 

By-the-way, there has been a great revolution in exchanges 
since Jehoshaphat's time. The Western nations, instead of bring- 
ing gold from India, now carry the precious metals into that coun- 
try- 

Suez, 3£ay 6th. — It is difficult to say which of the two places is 
the most forbidding and gloomy, Aden or Suez. Aden is scooped 
out of black volcanic rock, Suez is built on a monotonous gray 



ISMAi'LIA. 483 

sand-beach. It never rains here, naturally there is not moisture 
enough to sustain a germ of vegetable life, or slake a camel's thirst. 
Neither flood nor desert, however, can perpetually defy the 
improving hand of man. A stream of fresh water has been 
brought through the desert from the Nile, which supplies the most 
pressing wants of the town, and even a tiny garden occasionally 
smiles on the desert-shore. The Suez Canal Company has made a 
safe harbor here, with convenient wharves, upon which are con- 
structed the railway-station and engine-houses. 

Suez, like Omaha, is a great place in the future. At present it 
contains the taverns, storehouses, and machine-shops, which are 
required by a trade which is only recently opened. Some trav- 
ellers assign to it a population of twenty-five thousand. We think 
there may be ten thousand. All the buildings are of stone, except 
occasionally a small frame structure used as a boarding-house, and, 
because of its frail, fanciful construction, called an " American " 
house. 

Telegrams from Cairo were received on our coming to anchor 
here, and soon afterward Betts Bey, a confidential officer of the 
Khedive, came on board, with the United States consul-general for 
Egypt, and our esteemed American friend from Washington, Mr. 
Charles Knapp, of " great-gun " notoriety. Betts Bey tendered us, 
in behalf of the Khedive, a special train for travel at our own con- 
venience. 

Ismailia, May 6th. — We shall not now undertake to say 
whether it was Sesostris, or some other Barneses or Necho, wdio, 
seven hundred years before the Christian era, built a ship-canal 
across the desert from Suez to Bubastis on the Nile. Nor do we 
think it necessary to say that at the period of the first invasion of 
Egypt by the Turkish Mohammedans, fourteen hundred years later, 
that ancient and important navigation was so effectually lost that 
even its route across the desert had entirely disappeared, and its 
channel has never even been ascertained. Some good always 
comes out of the greatest evils. Napoleon's invasion in '98 was a 
severe scourge to Egypt. But the Suez Canal is the fruit of the 



484 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



suggestions and surveys he then instituted with a view to restore 
that invaluable highway. Seventy years were occupied with 
explorations to remove speculative difficulties. These were — first, 
that the elevation of the Mediterranean and of the Red Sea were 
unequal, rendering necessary a lockage, dangerous if not impracti- 
cable ; second, that no safe harbor could be built on the Mediter- 
ranean coast ; third, that the deposits of the Nile on the Mediter- 
ranean shore have made an oozy bed, incapable of holding water ; 
fourth, that the sands of the desert, near the Red Sea, are incapa- 




ble of retaining water ; fifth, that the siroccos of the desert would 
fill any channel with sand as fast as it could be excavated. There 
were difficulties also of a political nature. The British Govern- 
ment was unwilling that the canal should be built under French 
auspices. The Divan at Constantinople distrusted the loyalty of 
the Khedive, and was subservient to British influence. All these 
objections, however, gave way at last, and in 1859 M. Ferdinand 
Lesseps, with the effective support of the then Khedive, Said Pacha, 



THE SUEZ CANAL. 485 

organized a company and commenced the work. Now, in 1871, 
although not fully completed, the canal is in practical operation. 
Before leaving Suez, we examined the wharves and docks. We 
arrested the train at Serapeum, twenty miles, and at Ismai'lia, fifty 
miles from Suez, and inspected one of the deepest cuttings of the 
canal. We saw how easily ships of three thousand tons can pass. 

We left the northern end of the canal to be examined when we 
shall have completed our trip in Southern Egypt. We mention 
now a few only of the more remarkable matters belonging to the 
great enterprise. 

The canal is a hundred miles in length. It is carried on em- 
bankments raised in four successive natural lakes, Bitter Lake, the 
Timsah, the Ballah, and the Menzaleh. The depth of the water is 
twenty-six feet, its width at the bottom two hundred and forty-six 
feet, its minimum width at the top is three hundred and forty-six 
feet. It is without locks. Steam-vessels — as yet none others use 
the canal — make the transit in twenty-four hours. The harbor at 
Port Said, on the Mediterranean, is formed by two projecting piers, 
constructed of artificial stone made on the spot. In prosecuting the 
work, a diminutive fresh-water canal was first constructed by using 
the waters of the Nile. On the auxiliary canal, the barges convey- 
ing men, machinery, and supplies, were transported. The water of 
the Suez Canal, where we examined it, is of the same delicate blue 
that we had observed in the Gulf of Suez. The canal seemed like 
a narrow glossy ribbon, stretched across the yellow desert. Lake 
Timsah is a large basin of salt-water which supplies what is neces- 
sary to keep the canal at its proper level between the two seas. 
The canal-water is unpalatable to man and beast. 

M. Lesseps built a house near this lake, when he commenced 
the work. He brought the Nile water then through the lesser 
canal, and planted a garden. Contractors came there to reside, a 
town grew up in the Arabian Desert, equal in magnitude and rapid- 
ity of growth to Cheyenne. But the Frenchman made his town 
very beautiful. A population of fifteen thousand gathered there in 
seven years. Broad avenues and streets were marked over the 
sand, and soon were well paved, although stone is rarely found, 



486 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

even at the bottom of the canal. Catholic churches, foreign con- 
sulates, villas, banks, shops, and all other elements of the city, were 
there. The town was justly named Ismailia in honor of Ismail 
Pacha, the Khedive, and became at once a provincial capital. All 
this was while the canal was in process of construction. What did 
Ismailia want more? It wanted only the formal opening of the 
canal to assert itself a commercial and political centre. The day 
which the new city so impatiently desired came at last. Ismailia 
determined to introduce herself to the world by a grand festival. 
The season was propitious. The American civil war, which had 
filled the world with gloom, was ended. The French emperor had 
withdrawn his invading armies from Mexico. The " sharp, short, 
and decisive " war between Prussia and Austria was over. Not 
even a signal-note was then heard of the Germanic-French War, 
which last year broke upon Europe. The Temple of Janus was 
closed. All the world knows how the Khedive appointed a day for 
a celebration of the great enterprise, the greatest of the age. Of 
course, he invited Napoleon, the imperial patron of the work, the 
empress, in the fashionable sense " the light of the world," and 
with them all the kings and all the queens, and all the princes, and 
all the presidents, statesmen, warriors, and savants of the earth, to 
come to Ismailia. Nearly all who were invited came, personally or 
by representative. They were received on the sea-shore, and at 
Port Said. Splendid steam-yachts conveyed them up the Nile, 
showing them the Pyramids, the ruins of Memphis and Thebes, 
while waiting for the appointed day. Meantime the Khedive, with 
the energy and the profusion of Haroun-al-Paschid, built a palace 
at Ismailia, and gave it all the spaciousness and embellishments 
suitable for the entertainment of the majesties of the world. They 
came, they passed in barges, brilliant as Cleopatra's, through the 
canal from the Ped Sea to the Mediterranean. They -spoke, they 
drank, they danced, and they made the dreary desert for the first 
time a field of chivalry and merriment. Ismailia was happy in the 
lofty discourses it heard, the superb pageants it saw, and the magic 
entertainments it enjoyed, as she was proud in the prestige which 
this magnificent celebration confirmed. All Egypt was happy. 



PROSPECTS OF THE CANAL. 487 

Only a year and a half lias elapsed since that magnificent 
demonstration, and how sadly has Ismailia changed ! We found 
the population of the town reduced to less than two thousand. 
The beautiful palace, now knowing neither master nor guest, has 
already become monumental. The siroccos blow the sands of the 
desert on the paved streets of Ismailia, and there is neither man nor 
money to sweep them out. Contractors and workmen, their work 
being completed, have disappeared, and no merchants, mechanics, 
or laborers, have come in their place. The Suez Canal, however, 
remains, a commercial success. European and American steam- 
ships- of- war, as well as mercantile vessels of the largest size, pass 
and repass, but as yet bring no trade either to Ismailia or to 
Egypt. They pay very large tolls, but the company not only makes 
no dividends, but demands a new subscription of ten million 
pounds sterling to its stock, to secure the work against accident or 
waste. The Egyptian Government, owning half the stock, is em- 
barrassed, if not unable to make the subscription, and reports come 
in from Europe (how credible we do not know) that M. Lesseps 
and the company are offering to sell the canal to British purchasers, 
German bankers, American speculators, or whoever will buy. But, 
notwithstanding all this, the Suez Canal is safe. The permanent 
interests of Egypt, France, Great Britain, Germany, the United 
States, of civilization itself, will not allow it to be closed. The 
tolls, already ample to compensate its superintendence, will increase 
with the steady increase of steam navigation, and that increase is 
inevitable. The steam-voyage from Europe to India, whatever 
rate of toll the Suez Canal may demand, will be cheaper than the 
voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. Heavy freights can al- 
ways be carried more cheaply by steam on the sea than on the land. 
All that can happen or will happen of misfortune will be that new 
stockholders will obtain the stock at reduced prices, and the original 
and meritorious projectors and prosecutors of the enterprise will 
lose the whole or part of their investment. This, although a sad 
result, will only be a renewal of an old experience of public bene- 
factors. 



CHAPTEK II. 

FROM SUEZ TO CAIRO. 

The Bedouin Arabs. — A Wady. — Goshen. — Nubian Troops. — A Splendid Sunset. — The 
Palace of Repose. — The Khedive. — The Population of Egypt. — The Khedive's Im- 
provements. — A Visit to the Harem. — The Female Slaves, — Egypt and Utah. 

Cairo, May 6th. — From Suez to Cairo is one hundred and 
thirty miles. Leaving Isma'ilia at five o'clock, we continued our 
monotonous way for two hours. The desert has no inhabitants, 
except a small force of Arab laborers employed in keeping the 
canal and railroad free from the whirling sands. 

On this journey we have made our first acquaintance with the 
Bedouin Arabs. They were encamped with their camels and horses 
on an oasis of hardly thirty rods in circumference, its vegetation 
being due to a leakage of the small " Sweet-water " Canal. The 
Bedouin tents indicate vagrancy. TI13 encampment had no wom- 
en ; the men are stalwart and handsome. How long will it be 
before these travellers of the sands, dispensing with their cara- 
vans, will be buying " excursion-tickets " on railroads and steam- 
boats ? 

It is a singular contrast of man's enterprise against Nature's 
impassibility that our path through the desert is marked out, not 
only by the intcroceanic canal, but also by an interoceanic railroad, 
and by several telegraph-lines. Of these, the first is the Egyptian 
line ; the second, the European and Indian line ; the third, the 
Suez-Canal line. The whole of Egypt, Upper and Lower included, 



/ ' 




w 

> 



.'. .'i:....'Iii- , i . ■;i:...i.:l.!. . i , _ 






THE LAND OF GOSHEN. 439 

does not furnish sufficient timber for telegraph-poles. These are 
brought from the forests of the Danube. 

At the end of our two hours' ride, we crossed a broad piece of 
interval land, here called a wadi/, which is partially irrigated by one 
of the innumerable canals taken from the Nile. This wady is gen- 
erally understood to be within the district of Goshen. The ruins 
of a large town on its borders are said to bear evidences of Jewish 
architecture. We, however, can state nothing, for we found, on 
arriving here, a traveller who, having inspected the site, pro- 
nounces the claim apocryphal. We came soon upon the plain of 
the great river, where land and w r ater are always changing, and 
found it covered with tropical vegetation, luxuriant and abundant. 
We had scarcely entered the plain before we observed troops of 
lank, half-famished dogs, resembling the jackal. No one claims 
them, and they know no master — they are not unjustly described 
as pariah-dogs. We rested in Goshen for half an hour, enjoying 
the sumptuous lunch which we found awaiting us there. Resum- 
ing our way, we passed a large encampment of Egyptian troops, 
all black, athletic Nubians, in clean white uniforms. Next in 
splendor to the sunset at Yeddo, which we have recorded, was the 
sunset which welcomed us to the banks of the Nile. Beyond fields 
of ripened wheat, alternating with the springing Indian-corn, and 
vegetable gardens, everywhere shaded by the date-palm, the Pyra- 
mids towered clear against the horizon. Colorless as the rocks and 
sands on which they stand, they scarcely attained a darker shade as 
the sun went down behind them. For a moment, the monotonous 
coloring of sand, pyramids, and sky, gave place to the soft, hazy, 
commingling of crimson, violet, and gold, through which the god 
of day delights here to enter liis dark chamber in the west. All of 
this came quickly to an end, and the desert and the horizon, resum- 
ing their dark, leaden hues, l^ft it uncertain which had absorbed 
the other. 

Kasr Wudjii, Cairo, May *lth. — Our reception at Suez, and our 
journey hither, under the conduct of the viceroy's commissioner, 
had not at all prepared us, as they might have done, for the gentle 



490 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

hospitalities we are receiving. This palace, " the Palace of Rc- 
pose," is embosomed in gardens. 

The outside world seems never to have come to an agreement 
with the Egyptians as to the title of their sovereigns. In Hebrew 
literature, we read of Pharaoh, as if that were a proper name, where- 
as it is simply the Egyptian word for king. Khedive is, in modern 
Egypt, the title for which the Europeans use the word viceroy. 
Ismail Pacha, the present Khedive, is a son of the eminent Ibrahim 
Pacha, and grandson of the illustrious Mehemet Ali, the restorer 
of Egypt, after its ruin under the sway of the Mamelukes. He 
succeeded his uncle, Said Pacha, in 1863, and is fifty -five years 
old. By a treaty, which he made last year with the Sultan, the 
succession is confirmed to his family in a direct line. His deriva- 
tion is from Macedonia, and his appearance is decidedly European. 
He was educated, in part, in France. He speaks the French lan- 
guage, and inclines to French tastes and affinities. Arriving this 
morning, at six o'clock, from an excursion on the Nile, he appointed 
eleven o'clock to receive Mr. Seward at the Palace of Ghezireh. 
Sentinels were placed, at convenient distances, along the outer wall 
of the palace, and a small guard at the gate. The chief-of-staff and 
other officers met Mr. Seward at the door, and conducted him to 
an audience-chamber where the Khedive was standing dressed in 
the Egyptian military uniform with the tarboosh or fez. Receiving 
Mr. Seward kindly, he conducted him through several antecham- 
bers to an inner audience-room, and invited him to a seat at his 
side on a divan. Coffee and chibouques were immediately offered. 
Although the Khedive's countenance is dull and heavy, he con- 
verses in French with ease, sagacity, and intelligence. He ex- 
pressed a high appreciation of the United States, and especially of 
the justice they practise in international relations. He desired to 
do all that might be in his power to make Mr. Seward's travels in 
Egypt safe and agreeable. Conversation of half an hour ensued, 
in which the Khedive appeared equally free from pretension, affec- 
tation, or reserve. It took a broad range, embracing politics, 
agriculture, internal improvement, and popular education. Mr. 
Seward says, if he had met the Khedive in a social circle incognito, 



THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE. 491 

he should have thought him au accomplished country gentleman 
interested in education and social reforms, or a railroad contractor, 
a speculator in lands, or a planter, just as the subject of conversa- 
tion might happen to turn. He has two traits most admirable in 
administrator or prince — perfect good-nature and equanimity. 

Hardly had Mr. Seward returned from his audience when the 
Khedive, attended by his prime-minister, Cherif Pacha, arrived at 
the Kasr Nudjii, to return the visit. When Mr. Seward presented 
the ladies to him, he at once engaged in agreeable converse with 
them, and cordially expressed a hope that they would visit the 
ladies of his family. The well-trained stewards of Kasr Nudjii 
needed no instructions to serve the guests with the purest of Mocha 
coffee in the tiniest of golden cups, and the most fragrant Latakieh 
tobacco in jewelled chibouques with amber mouth-pieces. The 
Khedive remained with us aa hour, conversing freely on political 
affairs, and the subjects of interest in our travels. 

The population of Egypt is eight millions, consisting of two 
classes. The paramount class consists of immigrants or sojourners 
from Christian countries, European or American. They lead in 
commerce, banking, and manufactures. These foreigners, what- 
ever be their distinct nationalities, are called Franks, and they re- 
tain, by virtue of treaties called " concessions " between the Sultan 
and Christian states, their respective nationalities and allegiance. 
They are not only exempt from the judicial authority of the Egyp- 
tian Government, but also from taxation. Thus, they constitute a 
governing class, independent of the Government itself. In short, 
they replace the Mamelukes. The Khedive's great difficulty con- 
sists in conducting his administration so as to satisfy this class with- 
out arousing the jealousy of the natives, and thus avoiding interven- 
tion by foreign powers. The native class are of mixed races. A 
small portion of it are Copts, descendants of the original Egyptians, 
now Christians. A large population, principally near the Mediter- 
ranean coast, are chiefly of Arabian extraction, and are Mohamme- 
dans. Both these classes are illiterate and poor, and are called 
fellahs ; besides these, there are Nubians, Abyssinians, and other 
Africans. Over all these native classes, the Khedive exercises 



492 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

absolute power. He taxes, conscribes, and even confiscates, at 
pleasure. But this despotic authority has one practical, though not 
constitutional limitation. The majority of his subjects, being 
sincere and bigoted Mohammedans, never cease to regard the 
Sultan of Turkey as their sovereign. The Mohammedan natives 
of Egypt are not troubled with metaphysical distinctions between 
matters temporal and matters spiritual. They make it a condition 
of loyalty to their Khedive that he shall in all cases be loyal and 
submissive to the Sultan. The Khedive's administration is a per- 
sonal one, even more so than that of his friend and Jate ally, Napo- 
leon III. Every transaction of the Government is conducted with 
his personal knowledge, and by his direction. Without his direc- 
tion, nothing can be done. It is due to the Khedive, to say that 
his administration is successful, and even popular. No nation has 
a bolder projector, or more liberal patron, of internal improve- 
ments. He is reconstructing the city of Cairo. Five years hence, 
it will no more resemble the Grand Cairo of the . Saracenic age 
than modern Paris resembles the Paris of Louis Quatorze. He 
has already extended the Alexandria and Cairo Railroad one 
hundred and fifty miles toward Upper Egypt, and is intent upon 
carrying it to the Soudan, the extreme southern province in his 
dominions. We have already spoken of his munificence to the 
Suez Canal, but these improvements are prosecuted by him in his 
political character. Individually, he is the largest land-proprietor 
and greatest agriculturist in Egypt. They tell us that he owns 
one-fifth of the tillable land of the country. In this distinct private 
character he has a private treasury, and credit in the financial cir- 
cles of Europe. His wealth is estimated in billions. The claim 
that is made for him, that he is the richest man in the world, is not 
incredible. What is more marvellous is, that he superintends his 
personal estate as well as public affairs. 

May Sth. — Soon after the Khedive left us last evening, Betts 
Bey communicated the invitation of the Khedive to the ladies of 
our party, to visit the harem at the palace of the Khedive's mother, 
the Princess Yalide, at the Kasr Ali, at eleven o'clock to-day. 



THE KHEDIVE'S HAREM. 493 

There was a difficulty, for the ladies, after so many months' travel, 
were reduced to black or white morning costumes. Although no 
color or form of dress was prescribed in the invitation, we learned 
that on no account would black be allowed. A prejudice, either 
national or religious, prevails in the harem, that, if any misfortune 
occurs in the palace within a period of six months after a black 
dress or trimming has been worn there by any Christian woman, 
the visitor is responsible for it. Through the help of our country- 
woman Mrs. Stone, the necessary dresses of blue and lavender 
were procured, and the ladies repaired to Kasr Ali attended by a 
governess of the young princess, and by Betts Bey. Two compa- 
nies of Nubian troops, which guarded the high arched gate of the 
outer walls, presented arms as the party entered. Crossing a 
broad paved court, they received similar honors at the second gate, 
and again at the third gate. Here Betts Bey stopped, and the 
ladies, as they alighted from the carriage, were met by eight jet- 
black eunuchs in Egyptian uniform, and conducted through a beau- 
tiful garden to the vestibule of the palace. As they approached 
the vestibule, they saw that it was filled with young Circassian 
slave-girls, dressed in gay-colored gauzes and muslins, some with 
little turban-hats. Two of these, wearing richer dresses than the 
others, and displaying many diamonds, took each of the visitors by 
the hand, and conducted them through endless corridors and salons, 
the slaves following. These corridors and chambers were fur- 
nished with carpets of velvet, curtains of damask and lace, satin 
sofas and divans, great mirrors and crystal chandeliers, but were 
destitute of such works of art and articles of vertu as are deemed 
indispensable in a palace of the West. With this attendance, they 
were at last ushered into a salon not inferior in dimensions or con- 
struction to the East Room of the White House. The Princess 
Valide is the first lady of the state, taking precedence of the vice- 
roy's wives and daughters, all of whom are called princesses. 
When the ladies entered, she was reclining on a divan at the far- 
ther end of the hall, one of the " princess-wives " sitting near her, 
and sixty slave-girls formed in a crescent-shaped group at her left 
hand. The women who followed the guests arranged themselves 



494 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

in a corresponding half-circle on the opposite side. The visitors 
advanced between the two groups toward the divan, and were 
received by her Highness standing. Her dark eyes are sharp, her 
face expressive of great cleverness, her voice clear and pleasant. 
She received the ladies with perfect courtesy, and presented them 
to the princess at her side, and then invited them to seats on her 
left. The princess was dressed in a long white satin skirt which 
covered her feet, and a black-velvet jacket with long pointed 
Turkish sleeves. A fold of violet satin, with variegated border, 
was fastened around her head with a band of diamonds, the whole 
surmounted with a solitaire diamond of immense size. A large 
medallion likeness of the Khedive, set in diamonds, was fastened 
like a " decoration " on the left lapel of her jacket ; an enormous 
diamond graced the first finger of her left hand. 

The princess-wife wore a green-silk dress with lace, hat, gloves, 
boots, and fan, which must have been lately imported from Paris 
or London, and her light-brown hair was dressed in the latest Pa- 
risian fashion. The harem-ladies confess being very partial to the 
European modes. They have already ordered outfits from London, 
with the request that they may be counterparts of the trousseau of 
the Princess Louise. The conversation was in Arabic, the English 
lady-governess acting as interpreter. After an exchange of com- 
pliments, which were perhaps no more commonplace than is usual 
on such occasions in other countries, the slave-girls brought on a 
golden salver iced water, Turkish and Egyptian conserves, among 
which were sugared rose-leaves in enamelled cups, with golden 
spoons that might serve a fairy, then chibouques, one of which was 
offered to each lady. The bowl of the chibouque is of the red clay 
of Egypt, the stem, five feet long, of the fragrant Danubian willow, 
with an amber mouth-piece eight inches long. The Princess Vali- 
de's chibouque had a jasmin-stem and mouth-piece of black amber 
profusely set with diamonds. Etiquette forbids a guest to decline 
the chibouque, which is smoked by allowing the bowl to rest in a 
small silver tray on the floor. With the chibouque came delicious 
coffee, black, and flavored with the attar of roses. The princess- 
mother explained the condition of the slave-women. She says they 



FRIVOLOUS QUESTIONS. 495 

are brought from their native land when quite young, and are pro- 
vided with husbands and dowries. " They are very lucky," she 
said, with a laugh. Two hundred were seen on this occasion. 
They are neither pretty nor graceful, and appeared, as they went 
through their ceremonial attendance, like the chorus-singers of a 
German opera-troupe. The princess-wife said that she was from 
Circassia, without mentioning that she had been a slave. " We 
can get no more slaves from my beautiful country " she added, 
with a sigh, " since the Russians have taken it." It is quite usual 
for the viceroy to choose a wife among the slaves. "When married, 
they become princesses, their former state being forgotten. Be- 
yond these details, voluntarily given, the conversation was little 
more than a catechism of the guests on frivolous subjects, such as : 
" How old are you ? How many brothers and how many sisters 
have you ? What are their ages ? Are you married ? Why not ? 
Are you going to be? How old is Mr. Seward? What does he 
travel for ? How many sons has he ? How old are they ? How 
many of them are married ? Has he any grandchildren ? How old 
are they? How many are boys, how many are girls?" — and the 
like. The conversation betrayed a provincial deference for the 
Sultan's harem, and for Stamboul. Ten girls now entered with 
violins, citherns, and other instruments, and, arranging them- 
selves in a crescent, gave some very sweet music. When this was 
ended, ten other Circassian girls came forward, in short pink-and- 
white satin dresses, covered with silver lace and spangles, long 
white-satin Turkish trousers and French boots, and began a dance 
that, with short intervals in which they rested and the guests 
drank coffee, lasted three hours. These artistes were somewhat 
prettier than the slave-girls in direct attendance on the princesses, 
and they made a marked display of their luxuriant blond hair. 
The Princess Valide told us that, since the ladies of the harem 
were allowed to see the European opera and ballet at the theatre 
in Alexandria, they have become quite disgusted with the native 
performances of their own country. In our judgment, however, 
the " shawl-dance," rendered by the Circassian slaves, is as grace- 
ful as any European ballet, and is entirely unobjectionable. In 



496 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

taking leave, the Princess Yalide cordially invited the ladies to 
renew their visit. In passing through the antechamber, deliciously 
delicate iced sherbets were served in golden goblets, then a large, 
gold-embroidered and fringed muslin napkin was tendered to each 
guest, with which she touched her lips, and passed on. The slave- 
trains, in crescent platoons, followed through the corridors to the 
vestibule, bringing to the visitors their cloaks, smoothly folded, in 
perfumed satin bags. The eunuch guards made the same homage 
to the guests as when they entered, and the inseparable and invalu- 
able Betts Bey was at the gate. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's incomparable letters were, we 
think, the first revelation of harem-life to Western society. They 
made that life seem innocent and attractive. It wears the same as- 
pect in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." It is not strange that 
it should make that impression on occasional visitors, who see only 
its elegance and repose, while the jealousies, vice, and crime, which 
it so often develops, are concealed. We have been content to speak 
of what we saw, and as we saw it. The princess-mother seemed a 
matron who would be held in respect in any court or in any social 
circle. Notwithstanding the assurance she gave us, concerning the 
education of the Circassian slaves, they seemed, without exception, 
illiterate and dull. While the harem betrayed nothing of im- 
morality or impropriety, all the inmates except the Princess Yalide 
seemed simply idle and frivolous. There is, however, much reason 
to believe that, if the life is capable of elevation and refinement, it 
will assume that character under the direction of the present emu- 
lous and enlightened Khedive, who is having his daughters trained 
by English governesses, and his sons by French and English pro- 
fessors. From our stand-point, the harem is the last school to be 
chosen for the education of wives and mothers, of rulers and states- 
men. We see nothing here to shake our conviction that the 
system of early Jewish polygamy is rendered more completely 
degrading to woman as well as to man by its combination with 
Mohammedan sensuality and jealousy. 

We cannot leave this subject without instituting a comparison 
between polygamy in Egypt and polygamy at Salt Lake. Happily, 



AN EGYPTIAN GIRL. 



497 



the institution as established in Utah is free from the odious slave- 
trade in women, by which the harems in the East, for a thousand 
years, have been supplied by Circassia. Happily woman, on the 
American Continent, has never been cursed with that odious and 
disgusting class of police which the eastern harems have had from 
the dawn of human history; happily still, the forced attempt to 
reestablish the institution in Utah is attended by the necessity of 
educating the children, if not the inmates of the harem, up to the 
standard of civilized Christian countries. From this contrast, we 
think we may infer : first, that the wretched institution of polyg- 
amy is essentially and favorably modified at Salt Lake ; and second, 
that, even with such modifications, it cannot long be maintained 
there or elsewhere. 







A GIEL OF CAIEO. 



38 



CHAPTEE III. 

CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 

The Road to the Pyramids. — The Style of the Viceroy. — Interior of the Great Pyramid. 
— The Sphinx. — Mariette Bey. — Use of the Pyramids. — Rapacious Arabs. — The 
Phoenix. — The Site of On. — Ruins of Heliopolis. — The Tree of the Holy Family. — 
Mohammed Tauphik. — The Americans in Egypt. — The Citadel of Cairo. — A Museum 
of Antiquities. — Modern Cairo. — The Copts. — The Nilometer. — The Tombs of the 
Caliphs. — The Cemeteries of Cairo — The Mosques. — The Dancing Dervishes. — Ghe- 
zireh. — Polygamy. — The Cairo of To-day. 

Kasr Mudjii, May 9th. — We have given the day to the Pyra- 
mids. They deserved it, as they have exhausted it. From the 
time, twenty-five hundred years ago, when the Greek first ex- 
plored Egypt, until just now, a visit to the Pyramids was a labo- 
rious undertaking. Whether the traveller advanced toward them 
from Alexandria, or only from Cairo, an infinite preparation, of 
boats, and guides, and camels, of donkeys led and donkeys driven, 
of tents and provisions, for a tedious and circuitous journey among 
the dikes and canals of the Nile, was requisite. Now, all this 
is changed, or at least it has been changed for us. The Khe- 
dive, in preparing for the Suez-Canal celebration, built a high, em- 
banked road, across the valley of the Nile, to the very foot of the 
Pyramids, planting it with full-grown shade-trees. He constructed 
also a fine kiosk, at the base of the Pyramids, in the desert. These 
improvements are popularly said to have been made as an especial 
courtesy to the Empress Eugenie. We, however, have participated 
in their benefits, just as we did in the use of the pier which was 



THE PYRAMIDS. 499 

built for the Duke of Edinburgh, at Elephanta, in India. We 
made the journey, from our house to the Pyramids, in open ba- 
rouches, with four horses and postilions. We notice here a prac- 
tical difference in the style maintained by the British Viceroy of 
India and that of the native Viceroy of Egypt. The former dresses 
his postilions in the brilliant colors and graceful costumes of the 
East, and caparisons his horses in leopard and tiger skins. The 
Khedive copies the awkward liveries and trappings of the West : 
his postilions are French jockeys. 



THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH. 



The Pyramids have not disappointed us, as they do most travel- 
lers. Even at the greatest distance they do not seem diminutive. 
We had reason to regret, however, that the Khedive's highway 
did not continue into the interior of the great Pyramid of Cheops. 
The only entrance is by an aperture which the Greeks found 
hermetically sealed, and which is now partially opened. This 
aperture is now forty feet above the ground, and is reached only 
by climbing the outer wall. By the dim light admitted through 
the aperture, we descended to the interior of the pyramid by 
an inclined plane perhaps forty feet, and then, turning at right 



500 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

angles, by another inclined plane a hundred feet, covered ankle- 
deep with the sands accumulated for ages. Here the guides lighted 
torches, and, making a zigzag way right and left, we walked half 
bent along other planes, until we entered, through a very nar- 
row door, the lowest explored apartment in the pyramid, called the 
" Queen's Chamber." It is perhaps twelve feet square. The walls 
are of highly-polished red granite. The chamber is dark, silent, 
and vacant. From it, by upward ways not less perplexing than 
dangerous, we ascended to the greater apartment, called the 
" King's Chamber," thirty feet by twenty, the walls like those of 
the " Queen's Chamber." Near one end of the room is an immense 
open sarcophagus, also of red granite. It was doubtless prepared 
to receive the remains of the builder of the pyramid. But history 
tells of no relics contained in it. It is exactly in the condition now 
in which the first explorers described it two thousand years ago. 
The feeblest utterance in either chamber produces stunning echoes 
from the stupendous walls. The architects evidently had no idea 
of ventilation. Instead of coming back as strong as when they 
entered the " King's Chamber," the ladies, quite unconscious, were 
literally borne out by the sturdy Arab guides. 

The Sphinx, however, is the most attractive of all the monu- 
ments. It is more than sixty feet high, its human head more than 
twelve feet long, the nose four feet long, the mouth two feet wide. 
Archaeology bears little testimony concerning the conception of 
the Sphinx. It was built after the Pyramid of Cheops. Most of 
the innumerable pictures of the Sphinx are in profile. A front 
view shows that the face, especially the nose, has been mutilated. 
Nevertheless the expression is one of supreme benignity. The 
Sphinx does not seem to wonder while it excites the wonder of the 
beholder. The effect cannot be conceived unless, together with the 
colossal figure itself, we bring up its associations. Taken with 
these, the grim gigantic Pyramids, the indefinable debris, and the 
cloudless, treeless, limitless sterility of the scene, and they awaken 
in the beholder imaginations of events and of men of whom 
memory, history, and tradition, alike fail to impart any knowledge. 
Mariette Bey, an indefatigable antiquary in the Khedive's service, 



MARIETTE BEY. 



501 



has within the last six years excavated an area between Cheops 
and the Sphinx, in which he found a subterranean temple. "We 
explored it. It is one story high, built entirely of red granite, 




THE SPHINX. 



without arches, inscriptions, ornaments, painting, or sculpture of 
any kind. It contains ten spacious chambers, all opening into 
each other. Mariette Bey has been unable to form an opinion 
whether this temple was designed as a place of worship of the 
remains of the kings interred in the Pyramids, or whether it is a 
temple erected for the worship of the god Anaraches, who is sup- 
posed by some antiquaries to be represented by the Sphinx, 

No unsophisticated person, who for the first time sees the Pyra- 
mids, the sarcophagus of Cheops, the newly-disclosed temple, and 



502 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the Sphinx, can for a moment doubt that they are simply sepulchres 
of the dead, safe depositories, where the embalmed bodies of the 
kings might rest in secure concealment during their appointed term. 
"We know from history that the ancient Egyptians believed, after a 
manner, in the resurrection of the dead. They believed that the 
departed spirit would pass through a series of migrations in inferior 
animal forms, more or less happy or miserable according to their 
deeds, when living as men ; that this period of migration would 
continue three thousand years, and at the expiration of that term 
they would return and resume the bodies they had originally in- 
habited, and enter into a new existence on the earth. In accord- 
ance with this belief arose the ancient Egyptian custom of embalm- 
ing the bodies of the dead, and of preserving them in cases which 
excluded the air and other elements, and depositing them thus pro- 
tected in dry, rocky caverns, hermetically sealed so as to defy the 
prying search of man and beast. 

Our exploration of the Pyramids was not altogether free from 
the experience of which travellers always complain. A crowd of 
rapacious Arabs gathered from the dismal hovels of the villages 
around, who continually demand a backsheesh for services which 
were officious and unsolicited. Half a dozen of these at every point 
obstructed our way, under the pretence of showing it. One planted 
himself at the foot of the Sphinx to serve as a standard by which to 
measure its height. If you refuse their offer to carry you to the top 
of the Pyramids, they run up the steep acclivity themselves like so 
many lizards. You decline their support in walking through the 
sands ; they compensate themselves for the denial by telling you 
how the Pyramids and the Sphinx were raised in a single night. 
Notwithstanding these annoyances, our excursion was successful, 
and ended with a pleasant entertainment in the luxurious kiosk. 

Cairo, May 10th. — Herodotus says, in his account of the Egyp- 
tians : " They have also another sacred bird, which, except in a pic- 
ture, I have never seen, and which is called the phoenix. . . . Accord- 
ing to the Heliopolitans, it comes there but once in five hundred 
years, and then at the decease of the parent-bird. If it have any 



THE SITE OF ON. 503 

resemblance to its pictures, the wings are partly of a gold-color and 
partly of a ruby-color, and in form and size it is perfectly like the 
eagle. . . . They say that it comes from Arabia to the Temple of 
the Sun, bearing the dead body of its parent enclosed in myrrh, 
which it buries. It makes a ball of myrrh shaped like an egg, as 
large as it is able to carry, which it proves by experiment ; this 
done, it excavates the mass, and introduces the body of the dead 
bird. It closes the aperture with myrrh, and the whole becomes 
of the same weight as when composed only of myrrh. It then pro- 
ceeds to Egypt to the Temple of the Sun." 

We drove this morning to the site of ancient On, otherwise 
called Beth-shemesh (Heliopolis), ten miles northeast from Cairo, 
twenty miles from ancient Memphis. Of course we found there no 
"images," "no house of the sun," no city of Heliopolis, no phoe- 
nix, nor the grave of any 

" lonely bird 
"Who sings at the last his own death-lay, 
And in music and perfume dies away." 

"What we did find is a plain, with here and there a low mound 
of pulverized bricks. There is a dispute whether these debris are 
the ruins of the Temple of the Sun or of the walls of the city. A 
monolith obelisk of red granite rises between two of the mounds. 
It is sixty-eight feet high, and bears an hieroglyphic inscription 
which recites a date two thousand and eighty years before our era. 
An Arabian historian of the middle ages describes another one, 
which stood near the present obelisk, as an embellishment of the 
Temple of the Sun. The ground at the base of the existing obelisk 
has been excavated, and the pedestal is found buried to the depth 
of six feet. It is inferred from this fact that the plain of the Nile 
here has been raised by its inundations six feet in four thousand 
years. On the west and south sides of the monument the bees 
have made honey-comb dwellings, which completely cover the 
inscriptions. The plain north of Heliopolis is strewed with rocks, 
easily detected as having been formed by petrifaction, of fallen and 
broken trees. It bears the euphonious name of the " Petrified 



504 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

Forest." This is all that remains of On, where Joseph found his 
wife — of that Beth-shemesh against which Jeremiah pronounced 
the curse — all that remains of that Temple of the Sun, which was 
the chosen cemetery of the Arabian phoenix, and later was the 
school where Solon, Eudoxis, and Plato studied. 

On our return to Cairo we stopped at Mataria ; here are the 
remains of a garden, in which, according to Coptic tradition, 
accepted by the Roman Church, was the home of the Virgin, the 
Holy Child, and Joseph, in their flight from the dreadful decree 
of Herod. They showed us here, not only the very sycamore-tree 
which afforded shade to the Holy Family, but a natural spring in 
which the linen of the Divine Infant was washed. We are told 
that the Khedive presented the tree to the Empress Eugenie, We 
are thankful that she did not remove it, so as to deprive us of the 
physical and moral virtue, if any, which its foliage imparts. 

This morning visits were exchanged between Mr. Seward and 
Mohammed Tauphik, eldest son and heir-apparent of the Khedive. 
He is about twenty, handsome, intelligent, and carefully educated 
by European masters. We learn that his sagacious father, not- 
withstanding religious prejudices, insists upon Tauphik' s mingling 
freely with European society. Mr. Seward is also visited by the 
Khedive's ministers, some one among them dining at Kasr Mudjii 
every day. Cherif Pacha, president of the Council of State, and 
prime-minister, is a very able and sagacious statesman. ISToubar 
Pacha, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is an Armenian Christian, spir- 
ited and well informed, but somewhat restless under the restraint 
imposed on the Khedive's government by the Christian powers, as 
well as by the Ottoman Porte. 

The Americans in Egypt are a mixed though interesting 
family. The Khedive is reorganizing his army on the Western 
system of evolutions and tactics. For this purpose he has taken 
the loyal General Stone as chief-of-staff, and the loyal General 
Mott as aide-de-camp, and with these some eight or ten military 
men who distinguished themselves in the Confederate army. All 
of these Americans visited Mr. Seward to-day. While he expressed 
pride and satisfaction in finding his countrymen thus honorably 



THE CITADEL OF CAIRO. 505 

trusted and employed in a foreign service, lie nevertheless 
remarked, with characteristic tenacity, that he disapproved and 
lamented a proscriptive policy at home, which exiled even former 
rebels to foreign lands ; but it was due to the American people to 
confess that, in no other civil war, had the victorious party prac- 
tised so great magnanimity as the party of the Union has done. 

May Wih. — Although the citadel of Cairo has been rendered 
unreliable as a fortress, it very justly excites admiration. Like 
those of India which we saw, it is a combination of fortifications, 
palaces, and mosques. It stands on a rocky bluff of the desert, 
three hundred feet above the Nile, and, while it overlooks the 
entire city, it commands a view not only of the Pyramids of Gizeh, 
but also those of Lucena, and a view of the Nile, from ancient 
Memphis, far down the Delta. A well which supplies water to the 
citadel is an object of much curiosity and interest. It was exca- 
vated by Salah-ed-dyn (Saladin), otherwise known as Yussef-ebn- 
Ayoub, and from him called Joseph's well. It is two hundred and 
seventy feet deep, and consists of two stories or chambers. The 
water is raised from the bottom one hundred and twenty feet into 
the chamber, worked by men stationed at the bottom. Thence 
it is brought to the top of the well by another mechanical process. 
A winding staircase leads from top to bottom. Popular supersti- 
tion, seizing on the legendary history of the patriarch Joseph, long 
regarded him, and not Saladin, as the Tussef who made the well ; 
and at last, by an exercise of still greater credulity, it has come to 
be regarded, irrespective of topographical evidence to the contrary, 
as the veritable " pit " into which Jacob's pious son was thrown by 
his naughty brethren, in revenge for his having received a pretty 
coat. 

We see also in the citadel the court in which- the Mamelukes 
were treacherously massacred by order of Mehemet Ali in 1811. 
The magnificent palace of Saladin, its audience-chamber graced with 
thirty-two majestic monolith columns, was injured thirty years 
ago by an explosion which necessitated its removal. In its stead 
was built the last elegant palace of Mehemet Ali, which is now 



506 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the residence of the young prince Mohammed Tauphik. But a 
more imposing modern structure, however, in the citadel, is the 
mosque of Mehemet Ali, and the tomb of that great chief and 
ruler. The mosque, which, by reason of its advantageous site, its 
grand dimensions, and its lofty dome and minarets, is the most 
conspicuous and admired object in Cairo, is of purely Saracenic 
construction. Within and without, including walls, pavements, 
columns, and dome, the material is Oriental alabaster. The 
mosques we saw in India, though many of them have a more ex- 
quisite beauty, pretend to no such grandeur as this mosque of Me- 
hemet Ali. An order from the Khedive opened it to us, not as 
tourists, but as guests. The remains of Mehemet Ali rest in an 
immense alabaster sarcophagus, always covered with rich tapestry. 
The cover was removed, and disclosed an elaborateness of work- 
manship and inscriptions worthy of the restorer of Egypt. 

The Jews, in the time of the patriarchs, found Egypt a store- 
house of wheat ; the Greeks, at a later . period, found it a store- 
house of monuments and relics. With the loss of its ancient policy 
of government, and with the exhaustion, if not extirpation, of the 
early races, the country has, since that time, been unable to defend 
itself, much less to preserve those invaluable treasures. The West- 
ern nations have been violent and rapacious in carrying them away. 
Monolith granite obelisks and monolith sarcophagi of porphyry, 
not to speak of marble statuary, the spoils of Egypt, are found in 
Constantinople, Rome, Naples, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Lon- 
don. The ornaments of its queens, the domestic utensils of its 
people, their provisions and medicines, and even its exhumed dead 
in their grave-clothes and coffins, are exhibited in the same capitals, 
or hawked as spectacles over the civilized world for " a shilling a 
sight, children half price." Those who have no better opportunity 
to examine the • antiquities of that wonderful country, may with 
advantage study it in those stolen monuments and relics. They 
are, however, inadequate to convey an exact idea of the ancient 
civilization of Egypt. In regard to that study, they are what 
zoological gardens are to the knowledge of foreign animal races, or 
what exotic plants in a greenhouse are to tropical vegetation. 



THE CITY OF CAIRO. 



507 



Ismail Paelia has kept Mariette Bey well employed since 1863 in 
the task of saving such of these invaluable relics as yet remain in 
the country. The collection which has been made is not so vast 
as the stores which are scattered in foreign countries, but is of 
vastly greater worth than any one of the foreign museums. The 
monuments, tablets, hieroglyphs, images, ornaments, pictures, and 
relics, which it contains, are seen here in the very region where 
they were first produced, and in just relation to the different re- 
gions of the country, and of the different eras of its history. 

May 12th. — We must drop the antiquities of Egypt for a day or 
two, and confine ourselves to modern times and the city of Cairo. 




K 



1™ 





^^W^ll IWmife 



A STEEET IN CAIEO. 



It is a Mohammedan creation, and was founded about a. d. 970 by 
Moez, an Arab caliph from Western Africa, who called it El Kah't- 
reh, or " The Victorious." Its first site was at Fostatt, eight miles 



508 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

up the river. The original site is now called Old Cairo. The gov- 
ernment transferred its seat from Old Cairo to the present city in 
the twelfth century. Our visit to the old city was full of interest. 
There is the " House of Light " (Kasr-ech-chama), which, like the 
citadel at New Cairo, was at once a citadel and a palace of the first 
Mussulman rulers. From some unknown cause, this great Mussul- 
man ruin has become the retreat and home of the Copts. Though 
they have partially mixed their blood with their Nubian and Ara- 
bian neighbors on either side, they are universally recognized as 
the only true descendants of the ancient Egyptian race. They ac- 
cepted Christianity in the first century, and, adopting the asceti- 
cism which was affected by the disciples of our faith in that early 
period, they incorporated a church with, a powerful hierarchy and 
monastic institutions, the models perhaps of those institutions that 
have so long existed throughout Christendom. They established a 
litany. Although now reduced in number to one hundred and 
fifty thousand in Egypt, they still preserve their hierarchy, those 
monastic institutions, and that litany. In the great theological 
dispute which distracted Christendom from the fourth century to 
the tenth, they rejected equally the supremacy of the Patriarch at 
Constantinople and that of the Bishop of Rome. In the main 
they go with the Roman Church in requiring celibacy for the clergy, 
while they adhere with the Greek Church to the abstruse meta- 
physical doctrines that, after the incarnation of the Saviour, His 
nature was one, and not a double nature, and that the Holy Ghost 
"proceeds," not "from the Father and the Son," but from the Fa- 
ther alone. 

The Copts have at least two convents, perhaps more, in the old 
" House of Light." We visited that of St. George ; a part of it is, 
beyond all doubt, much older than modern Cairo. This part is a 
cave, in which there is a Christian church, which contains carvings, 
pictures, and inscriptions, illustrating the Nativity and the sojourn 
of the Holy Family in Egypt. The Copts universally hold to the 
tradition that Joseph, Mary, and the child, dwelt in this cave, and 
that the church was built on the consecrated place to preserve it. 
The cave, or, as it is here called, the grotto, is divided into three 



THE TOMBS OF CALIPHS. 509 

chambers, an outer, an interior, and a middle one. In the first is a 
Coptic baptismal font ; in the second, within a niche, a stone bear- 
ing the impress of the Saviour's foot ; in the third, a similar track. 

The so-called Tombs of the Caliphs constitute a feature of Cairo 
which no traveller neglects. They are situated just outside of the 
Bab-el-Nini (Gate of Victory). They are the tombs, however, not 
of the Mohammedan conquerors, but of their Mameluke successors. 
These structures, like the imambarras of the Moguls, are mosques. 
They are fine specimens of the Saracenic style, but have no pre- 
tension to grandeur. Surrounded by the sands of the Desert, they 
are falling to decay and dilapidation. Many of them contain fine 
Arabesque wood- carvings. A visit to the sepulchres of the count- 
less sovereigns of Egypt may well make one doubt whether the 
ambition to be remembered after death is even wise. At least it is 
possible to be remembered too long. Who cares now for Cheops, 
even if his ashes still remain secure within his majestic tomb? 
Who is there living now to honor or delight in the memory of 
Sesostris or Rameses? Who can envy the Mameluke Sultans, 
whose tombs are resolving themselves into the sands of the desert, 
while their hated race has been extirpated from the country over 
which they tyrannized ? 

It was a relief, after an inspection of the tombs of the Mame- 
lukes, to visit the modern cemeteries of Cairo. The ruling 
family, and perhaps others, occasionally build mosques over their 
tombs, but smaller and less imposing even than those of the Mame- 
lukes. The Khedive has erected a mosque which covers the re- 
mains of Said Pacha and other members of his family. Here, as in 
most of the monumental mosques, prayers are hourly chanted, year 
after year, by lay readers employed for that purpose. The tombs 
are invariably of white marble, gaudily painted in oil. A carved 
tarboosh at the head of the monument indicates that the sleeper is 
a man ; a veil, that it is a woman. 

Cairo has three hundred mosques. This is only saying in an- 
other way that Cairo is one of the most beautiful of all cities, inso- 
much as the gentle slope of its site, from the desert to the river- 
bank, allows every imposing structure its full effect ; and, of all 



510 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



architectural forms, the mosque, with its always graceful domes and 
slender minarets, is the most pleasing. The Mosque of Amrou, 
lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, in the old city, built in 642, is not 
only the oldest mosque of Cairo, but the oldest in the world. In a 
state of dilapidation, enough only of the structure remains to give 
an idea of its original grandeur and simplicity. The columns of 




MOSQUE AND HOUSES IN CAIRO. 



granite and porphyry, which it borrowed from the temples of a 
more ancient worship at Memphis, have disappeared, and the mar- 
ble tablets, on which the full text of the Koran was written, have 
gone with them. 

Next after the Mosque of Mehemet Ali, already described, the 
most important is that of Ahmed-ebn-Souloun, built in 877, in the 



THE MOSQUES OF CAIRO. 511 

earliest Saracenic style. It is two hundred feet by one hundred. 
Another very grand mosque of Azhar, though built nine hundred 
years ago, was repaired in 1672, and is in admirable preservation. 
Its principal use, however, is not that of religious worship. It is 
the most popular university in Egypt. The scientific course pur- 
sued here embraces the Koran, versification, grammar, civil law, 
commercial law, and ecclesiastical law. Two thousand students, of 
different ages and sizes, sit on the floor in circles, whose circum- 
ference is as regular as if they had been described by the com- 
pass. They sit cross-legged, facing inward, while the professors 
stand at convenient distances so as to hear and instruct several 
circles. Each student has a book before him, and commits its text 
to memory by rehearsal, constantly swinging backward and for- 
ward during the exercise, not only the students in one circle, but 
all the students in all the circles rehearsing in chorus. "We inquired 
in which of the schools of philosophy of ancient Egypt this form of 
instruction was instituted, but received no satisfactory answer. We 
think it must have originated at the Tower of Babel ! 

Mosques in Mohammedan cities, like temples in pagan coun- 
tries and churches in a Christian land, are so much alike, that wan- 
dering through them becomes monotonous. We finished our tour 
with a visit to a mosque of dancing dervishes. The mosque is a 
rude, unfurnished structure, containing one square room for men, 
with a circular gallery for women. It is open to spectators, though 
few were present on this occasion. The brethren came into the 
chamber and took seats on the floor within the railing. They wore 
a uniform habit, consisting of brown serge, extending from neck to 
feet, with full skirt, and fastened with a girdle, and a round, high 
hat made of gray felt. It was easy to see that they arrayed them- 
selves according to fixed order. The sheik entered and took his 
seat on the floor, directly opposite to the lay members. His cos- 
tume differed from theirs only in being of a purple color. "When 
he had taken his seat, a brother rose, walked slowly around the 
chamber, and made a salutation to the superior. Each other broth- 
er followed performing the same ceremony. A strain of solemn 

music, on the flute, was heard from an upper recess, whereupon 
39 



512 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



the brothers rose, one after another, and began a whirling motion, 
at first slow, but gradually increasing in rapidity, the right arm 
stretched upward and the left correspondingly depressed, as a bal- 




IXTEr.IOR OF A MOSQUE. CAIIX). 



ance. Their full, heavy skirts had weights at the bottom which 
held them down while they expanded like round sails with the 
movement. This dizzy exercise continued until the entire body of 
the brotherhood were spinning around like so many tops, their 
dresses spreading out over their feet. The performance had lasted, 
as we thought, about an hour, when the music suddenly ceased, as 
if the musicians instead of the dancers had given out, and, on the 
instant of the music ceasing, they came to a rest. Then they 
walked in solemn procession around the room, each making a 



GHEZIREH. 513 

salam to the superior. All the dervishes were men of full age. 
save one, a boy of twelve, who for some reason seemed to be held 
in great respect as a leader. He whirled with greater gravity, if 
possible, than his companions. We supposed him to be designated 
by birth or some other cause for preferment. The dervishes 
withdrew from the mosque without any manifestations of sancti- 
mony, and, when we met them after the exercises, they seemed to 
us as cheerful and business-like as mechanics and artisans. They 
made no show of mendicity. It would be a curious study to trace 
to their source, in a common principle of human nature, the wor- 
ship of the Shakers in our own country and that of the dancing 
dervishes of the East. 

Having been received by the Khedive and his family, and domi- 
ciled in one of the state palaces, it would have seemed to us a mani- 
festation of unbecoming curiosity to visit the other viceroyal 
residences. But the palaces of princes are objects of pride to them, 
as villas, mansions, and cottages, are to humbler proprietors. The 
Khedive intimated to us that the ladies ot his family would have 
notice of our coming, and so our visits to the other palaces would 
not take them by surprise. Most of these palaces are simpler and 
plainer, and more after the European style, than we had supposed. 
Shobia is the most pleasant one. It is a palace built and arranged 
in a quadrangular form, exclusively for social entertainments, and 
encloses a lake of two or three acres, which is filled with curious 
fishes, and rare aquatic birds. All its halls, corridors, reception- 
rooms, banqueting-halls, billiard-rooms, and baths, connect with 
each other. The Khedive has been especially lavish in enlarging 
and embellishing Ghezireh, which is the most favored home of the 
princesses, although they always attend him wherever he resides or 
sojourns. It was manifest, on arriving there, that the Khedive's 
instruction for an admission had not yet reached the palace. The 
Nubian eunuchs drew swords upon us. We sauntered in the gar- 
dens while waiting for the necessary explanations to be made. 
These gardens are laid out on the European plan, and exhibit a 
blaze of scarlet geraniums, and yellow flowering plants, without a 
trace of white, blue, or purple. Chinese gardening has been adopted 



514 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

to produce a rocky mound on an island, in a pretty artificial lake, 
and in the mound is a picturesque labyrinthian grotto, divided into 
Moorish chambers, refreshment-rooms, drawing-rooms, and pavil- 
ions ; while light is flashed upon you at every turn by innumerable 
stalactites, mirrors, fountains, and cascades. Coming upon earth 
again, from this fairy subterranean maze, we wandered through 
the extensive menagerie, meeting, on the way, the princess-wife, 
whom the ladies had seen at Kasr Ali. She was enjoying a sunset 
promenade, attended by a long train of ladies, slave-girls, and 
inevitable eunuchs. The princess was arrayed in a dress of orange- 
and-white shot silk, which completely enveloped her tall, graceful 
figure, and covered the lower part of her face. Her eyes were par- 
tially veiled with the customary, very becoming, single fold of white 
illusion. She interposed her little green parasol between her eyes 
and our party as dexterously as a Broadway coquette. The women 
of the seraglio were looking down upon us through latticed win- 
dows, when the captain of the eunuch-guard opened the doors, with 
an apology for the previous delay, and proceeded to execute his 
instructions by showing us a long range of luxurious apartments. 
Gilded ceilings, marble floors, Persian carpets, damask divans, and 
French mirrors, alone justify the preference of the inmates for 
Ghezireh. A cultivated Western taste would have introduced 
here books, paintings, statuary, and a thousand works of art and 
beauty, but we found nothing of the sort, except one table of Flor- 
entine mosaic, which was presented to the Khedive by Victor 
Emmanuel. 

Is this a place and time to renew our speculations concerning 
the harem as a domestic institution ? The Mohammedan provision 
for woman is a prison in which her sufferings from jealousy are 
consoled by the indulgence of her vanity. She is allowed the so- 
ciety of her own sex with far less restraint than is ordinarily sup- 
posed, and she displays before her visiting friends with pride the 
wealth and ornaments which lighten her chains. She goes abroad 
in Cairo, but always in her carriage, and looks upon the busy world 
in the streets with veiled eyes and under surveillance. She attends 
her lord in his state progresses from palace to palace in Egypt, 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CAIRO. 515 

from Cairo to Alexandria, and from Alexandria to Stamboul. But 
she goes no farther, and never alone. She never reads, and, so far 
as possible, is required never to think. The Mohammedan law de- 
clares that the supreme object of her existence is to be married, 
and to have children for the benefit of the state ; to be unmar- 
ried, even to be widowed, is a reproach, and to die in either of 
those conditions is to forfeit happiness in a future state. It is 
true, indeed, that, though she fulfils her appointed duties and 
destiny in obedience to the law as Avell as she may, she has not 
even in that case the promise of association with the faithful in 
paradise. For them houris are appointed, an especial creation, 
more beautiful, more fascinating than woman. For the faithful 
Mohammedan wife there is reserved, however, in paradise, a condi- 
tion which, while it is a seclusion from the other sex, is gay, glo- 
rious, and perfectly happy. 

The Cairo of to-day is not entirely the same Cairo which " Ed- 
then" and the "Howadji" have so well described. This active, 
restless, in nova ting Khedive, Ismail Pacha, lays out and paves broad 
and direct avenues, plants spacious parks and gardens, and builds 
or buys European hotels, banking-houses, warehouses, and what not, 
to such an extent that a sojourner here, who confines himself with- 
in the improved district, might fancy himself in Vienna or Milan. 
Nevertheless, the Grand Cairo of history and of romance, the Cairo 
of the "Arabian Nights," of Saladin, and the Mamelukes, remains a 
great city, a maze of majestic mosques, latticed palaces, and brilliant 
bazaars, variously built of stone, unburnt brick, and of wood, all 
streaked fantastically with red and yellow paint, and quaintly orna- 
mented in Moorish arabesque. The narrow streets, sometimes too 
narrow for any travelling beast but the donkey, often end in a cul- 
de-sac, while other streets, winding, turning, and twisting, lose them- 
selves in close, dark, mysterious courts, or come out upon acacia 
avenues leading to steaming baths and sparkling fountains. The 
people of all sorts, conditions, occupations, and races, known among 
men, seem contented with themselves, and equally gentle toward all 
comers. The Italian, the French, the English, the American, and 
the German, jostle alike the children of Ishmael and the children 



516 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



of Israel, the Greek, the Copt, the Berber, the Abyssinian, the 
Nubian, and the Soumalan. 

The merchandise carried on here is as various as the races, sup- 
plying equally all the luxuries of courts and the lowest wants of 
the nomadic tribes of the Arabian and Libyan Deserts, not to 
speak of the supply of the traveller with antiques and articles of 
vertxi. We noticed the sign of an ingenuous as well as ingenious 
Italian that he fabricates and sells "Egyptian relics." 




CAIEO, FROM THE EAST. 



CHAPTER IV. 

UP THE NILE. 

Embarkation at Ghizeh. — The Pyramids of Saccara. — The Two Deserts. — Siout. — The 
American Vice-Consul. — Sultan Pacha. — Character of the Nile. — Slave Boats — Arab 
Villagers. — The Birds of the Nile. — The Population on the Banks. — Domestic Ani- 
mals. — Personal Arrangements. — A Tippling Monkey. 

Rhodah, on the Nile, May 12th. — We shall never cease to felici- 
tate ourselves that we had sufficient resolution to go to the Great 
Wall of China, though it was November ; and through India, 
though so late as March. We are not particularly satisfied with 
ourselves for having yielded to remonstrance, and given up our 
projected visit to the Euphrates. An excursion on the Nile in 
May is equally contraband. Though the Khedive has provided for 
it like a prince, yet, like a judicious merchant, he warns us that he 
does not insure our lives. 

We took our seats in a special railway-train at Ghizeh, on the 
west bank of the Nile, opposite Cairo, at one this afternoon ; and 
now, after a journey of two hundred and ninety miles, we are em- 
barked in the steam-yacht Crocodile. Our journey at the very be- 
ginning afforded us one of the most beautiful views which the val- 
ley of the Nile presents. On our right, the Libyan Desert, with 
its eternal sentinels, the Pyramids. The river winds almost at 
right angles toward the east, and is covered with lateen-sail-boats 
freighted with the grains and fruits of Southern Africa. Before us 
the undulating bank beneath the cliffs of the Arabian Desert 



518 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

stretches out widely, and displays endless groves of mimosa-trees 
and date-palms. Below these, and on our left, is the great city of 
Cairo, crowning the acclivity from the water's edge to its towering 
citadel. The rainless clouds are pierced by the slender, gleaming 
minarets of the great historical mosque, whose walls are lost in the 
distance. 

"We had not lost sight of Cheoj>s and Cephren, when we came 
directly under the shadow of the Pyramids of Saccara, like the 
former sepulchral monuments of departed kings, but of inferior 
magnitude. We passed, as we were assured, over the site of an- 
cient Memphis, without seeing one stone resting on another there. 
More of this, however, when we shall come down the Nile. 

Rhodah has three distinctions : it is the southern terminus of 
the great Railroad of the Nile, which begins at Alexandria ; it has 
a palace of the Khedive ; and extensive sugar-manufactories, which 
are his private property. The people received us kindly here, and 
conducted us to the yacht, with the courtesies of a pleasant sere- 
nade, torch-lights and bonfires. 

Siout, May 13th. — The mountains of the two deserts, between 
which the Nile makes its way, are much nearer than we had sup- 
posed. Alternately the Arabian Desert and the Libyan one crowds 
the river, and gives it a serpentine direction. These promontories 
often rise abruptly to the height of a thousand feet, leaving scarcely 
a ribbon-width of green plain at their feet. We passed such a 
one yesterday, which was terraced from the river's surface far up 
toward its summit with galleries of vaulted tombs excavated in the 
rock, and long since rifled of their deposits. Many of these tombs 
have now living Arab tenants. 

This afternoon we planted our mooring-stake for the first time, 
in the high shelving bank of the river near this town, the name of 
which we write from a French map Siout, but which English 
travellers call Assiout. Now the flourishing capital of Upper 
Egypt, it is in history Lycoptera, the " Town of the Wolf," or, as 
the ancient Egyptians named their towns from their temples, the 
" Town of the Temple of the Wolf." Whatever else its present in- 



SIOUT. 519 

habitants may do now, they do not worship the most ferocious and 
cowardly of wild beasts. Siout is the terminus of a caravan-trade 
which penetrates through the Libyan Desert to the great Oasis. 
The population is thirty thousand. One-third are Copts. The 
streets are narrow, the thronged bazaars filled with cheap articles 
of trade, the buildings either of stone or adobe. One or two 
mosques redeem the city from a general aspect of vulgarity and 
meanness. The town is built on the edge of the Libyan Desert. 
The plain, somewhat more than a mile wide between it and the 
river, is annually inundated, but the traveller passes safely over it 
on a broad embankment, which must have been built as long ago 
as when the dwellers of the place confessed the wolf for their god. 
Our chief interest at Siout consists in the insight it gives of the 
ancient Egyptian form of burial. The abrupt rocky desert face, 
which looks down over the place, is pierced with sepulchral caves. 
These caves are of vast extent and are divided into numerous cham- 
bers ; all are dark, but, with the aid of torch-light, we found them 
hewn and chiselled with elaborate architectural shapes, with por- 
tals, columns, roof, and architraves. While we were pushing our 
exploration, Freeman fell from the floor on which we stood, into 
another chamber four or five feet below. He was unhurt, but 
after it we concluded to leave the million bats and owls within to 
the quiet enjoyment of their at least possessory right. 

The Governor of Upper Egypt, Sultan Pacha, has a palace here, 
and with his staff has kindly accompanied us in our excursion. 

The United States vice-consul here is a native, though an 
Armenian Christian. He has entertained us at his house, and 
brought around us his sons and many of his neighbors. Being a 
man of wealth, he prides himself on his dwelling, which he fondly 
thinks he has built on European plans. It is at least an improve- 
ment on the Egyptian style. We entered it from the street, by 
crossing a barrier two feet high at the door, and descending without 
steps to what seemed a basement, but proved to be a broad vesti- 
bule, paved with solid stone, and covered with sand three inches 
deep. We made our way through a dark gallery, without pave- 
ment or floor, to the lofty consular saloon, with a divan stretching 



520 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

across one end, a row of attendants on either side, and a table in 
the centre. The room has no external ventilation of door or win- 
dow, and is lighted day and night by lamps binning American 
petroleum. The reception was extremely kind, but, for want of 
acquaintance with Western manners, was excessively ceremonious 
and tedious. Coffee, champagne, sherbets, bonbons, and chibouques, 
were served, and many African curiosities presented to us. The 
consul insisted that we should stop on our return, and enjoy an 
entertainment of native music and dancing. We returned to our 
yacht, where Mr. Seward entertained Sultan Pacha and the vice- 
consul at dinner. The governor, a dignified and courteous man, 
was only once beyond the borders of Egypt ; this was when he 
went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The vice-consul has never been 
beyond the summit of the deserts between which he was born. 
Both expressed great wonder at Mr. Seward making such long 
travels, and plied him with questions concerning the United States, 
of which they have only the one idea, that it is a land of universal 
freedom and unmixed happiness. The governor is making an offi- 
cial voyage, through Upper Egypt, in his own steam-yacht. We shall 
see more of him. We sleep to-night, as last night, under strains of 
music, and with an illumination blazing on the shore. 

On the Crocodile, May lUh. — So far as circumstances and in- 
cidents are concerned, the experience of one day on the Nile is 
that of every day ; even the scenery, though unique and pictu- 
resque, is monotonous. The river swells in the middle of June, and 
attains its greatest height about the first of October, after which it 
falls continually lower until the next annual flood. It is now near 
its lowest stage. The soil of the valley is not different from that 
of the Mississippi. The river is of very unequal width ; in some 
places ten rods wide, at others it spreads into shallow lakes, which 
leave scarcely any tillable land on either bank. Like the great 
American river, it is always changing its channel, wearing away a 
high and fertile bank on one side, and transferring the soil to posi- 
tions lower down and on the opposite side. At every point of the 
voyage, the entire width of the valley is seen. Its average is six 



THE CANALS OF EGYPT. 521 

miles. Irrigation fertilizes every acre ; the water, at whatever 
stage, is raised for that purpose by all the contrivances known 
to Prof. Ewbank, from the primitive well-sweep and bucket, and 
the endless chain and pitcher worked by mules and oxen, to the 
steam-engine, which is employed on the great sugar-plantations. 

So many channels are made for distributing water over the sur- 
face, that Egypt truly boasts of more miles of canal than Java, China, 
India, Holland, or the United States. The mountains on either side 
are of solid ro ik, varying from sandstone to limestone and granite. 
Huge bowlders of all these rocks are seen on either declivity, or 
resting in the valley ; but the river-bed itself is free from stone. 
We are now five hundred miles from its mouths, and yet, through- 
out all that distance, there is not a rock which hinders navigation. 
Sand-bars formed by shifting currents render navigation, at low 
water, impossible for vessels drawing more than three feet, and 
even those venture to move only by daylight. The downward cur- 
rent is everywhere strong. Our yacht makes only five miles an 
hour against it, although our motor is an engine of forty horse- 
power. The only relief we have from the intense heat comes 
with frequent changes of the wind from south to north. At every 
turn we see, on the one bank or on the other, clumps of dwarf 
cypress, and of palmetto, or of date-palms. With these exceptions, 
there is nothing of forest, and, of course, little of shade. We can 
well imagine that tourists, more fortunate in their choice of season, 
sailing on a full river, level with its banks, find the country 
exceedingly beautiful, the broad plains being then covered with 
wheat, Indian-corn, rice, lentils, sunflowers, cotton, sugar, and 
tobacco — a magnificent display of verdure under the frowns of two 
gigantic deserts. Such enjoyment, however, is not for us. The 
cultivated banks are higher than the chimneys of our steamboat ; 
we catch only an occasional glimpse of the fields, now in their 
brownest and most exhausted condition. No rain has fallen for 
a year. Not a cloud passes, between the sun and the soil, by 
day or by night. The earth is parched and cracked ; the winds, 
which in other climates amuse themselves by driving storms of rain 
and snow over the earth, here make their wild sport only with the 



522 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

black dust of the valley and the yellow sands of the desert. For all 
this, the voyage is, none the less, one of deep interest. The valley, 
more than a thousand miles long, is densely inhabited. Like the 
great river of China, the Nile is animated by travel and traffic. 
Three classes of boats are employed : the steamer, of course small, 
and only recently introduced, is, as yet, monopolized by the Gov- 
ernment ; second, the dahabeeh, a boat using the lateen-sail, grace- 
fully constructed and gayly painted ; third, the vastly more numer- 
ous and effective class of small boats, also using the lateen-sails, 
and managed by the natives. These bring down to Cairo the 
surplus produce of Upper Egypt, and carry back merchandise, 
chiefly of the cheapest and coarsest clothing, and indispensable 
utensils and articles of furniture. Occasionally, too, one of these 
boats is seen, in spite of all foreign protests, and of the Khedive's 
interdiction, bearing a group of jet-black men, women, and chil- 
dren, whom some native African chief, beyond the Egyptian bor- 
der, has sold as prisoners of war, or exchanged for the trinkets so 
highly valued in savage life. They do not seem unhappy. Moham- 
medan slavery, in fact, wears rather the character of domestic ser- 
vice than of exhausting labor and hard bondage. 

The people cluster in towns on the banks, in small, low, oven- 
shaped dwellings of sunburnt brick, without windows. A house 
of two stories indicates the residence of a successful merchant or 
speculator. It is sure to be ornamented with Venetian blinds, 
painted brown. Its double-latticed, narrow windows arc designed 
to indicate that its proprietor is a Mohammedan, blessed with a 
harem. The Mohammedan church maintains, through all ad- 
ministrations, its rich foundations of mortmain. The mosque, 
therefore, dominates everywhere. Aquatic birds swarm on the 
beach and the sand-bars — cranes, ducks, geese, bright flamingoes, 
and stately vultures. Not the splashing of our propeller, nor even 
the shrill steam-whistle, startles one of these birds. The crocodile 
was a native of the Nile, and in the ancient mythology a god. All 
books of travel written twenty or thirty years ago are filled with 
accounts of that hideous monster. Champollion relates that he 
saw fourteen at one time. It has entirely disappeared since the in- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE. 523 

traduction of the steamboat, and the traveller who should speak of 
seeing a crocodile below the cataracts would be thought as extrava- 
gant as Sinbad. 

The inhabitants are nearly all fellahs. A large portion of them 
are of Arabian descent, often intermixed with the more swarthy 
Abyssinian and black Nubian. They are strong, slender, and pa- 
tient. A very small class, consisting of official persons, merchants, 
or " middle-men," wear a white Moorish turban or red tarboosh, 
and dress quite tastefully in black-cloth coats and white panta- 
loons, imported by wholesale from England. But the common 
people uniformly wear the heavy turban and blue cotton blouse, 
with bare feet and legs. No one of any class, however, neglects 
to carry a camel's-wool cloak, butternut colored, for his bed at 
night. The children, as in other tropical countries, wear nothing. 
Ophthalmia is universally prevalent. Women, either Mohammedans 
or Copts, are never seen with men in either town, country, or vil- 
lage. They are seen only occasionally, and then in small groups, 
but, on being approached, they timidly hide themselves in their 
wide blue mantles, and retire to the road-side or into some dark 
corner. It is painful to notice how much toil and time are ex- 
pended for domestic wants ; but for the people it seems only a pleas- 
ant exercise. The Nile is the one indispensable supply of the com- 
fort of life. Men are seen everywhere driving their small herds into 
the river for drinking and bathing, and, on their return, bringing 
home a domestic supply of the water in skin -bottles. At sunset 
and sunrise women are seen coming in long, dark processions from 
distant towns, by winding paths, to the water-side, and, as in 
patriarchal times, bearing the family supply in large earthen urns 
poised gracefully on their heads. 

There is no lack of domestic animals among this people. The 
horse is small, but strong and well shaped. The ugly water-ox is 
the beast of the plough ; the donkey is the common carrier of the 
country ; while the camel not only shares that labor with him, but 
also labors in the field. There are immense flocks of sheep and 
goats, the latter all black. It is difficult to decide which party 
manifests the greater affection, the fellah for his mute beast, or 



524 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



the donkey for his kind and gentle master. They are insepara- 
ble. The Arab is violent in altercation with his fellow-man, and 
often deals a passionate blow, but he never strikes or reproaches 




A WOMAN ON THE NILE. 



his beast. The people, isolated from all other races, show a great 
fondness for birds. We have heard the report of neither rifle nor 
fowling-piece, and every house in every town has a fanciful dove- 
cote with alluring twigs at its windows. Although the Arabs have 
no prejudice against animal food, the domestic pigeon is held as sa- 
cred here as robin red-breast is in Massachusetts. Pigeons have 
multiplied so much that political economists compute their consump- 
tion of the products of the valley at one-twentieth part. When we 
reason with a native on the subject of this extravagance, he replies 
that the bird compensates for it by supplying guano for the pro- 
duction of water-melons. 



OUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 525 

A word now of our personal experience in the voyage. The 
weather is intensely hot, and of course grows hotter as we go south. 
Our party, including Betts Bey, consists of four and our three ser- 
vants. Each passenger has a large state-room opening into a 
comfortable after-cabin. The forward-cabin was arranged as a 
dining-room, but Mr. Seward overrules the arrangement, and causes 
the table to be spread always under an awning on the after -deck, 
and he persists also in using the same airy apartment for his own 
sleeping-room. It is impossible for us to be on shore in the day- 
time, on account of the insufferable heat. We make our calcula- 
tions, therefore, to move up the river in the middle of the day, rest- 
ing, sleeping, trying to keep cool, and writing our notes. We go 
ashore at as early an hour as possible before sunrise, and at as early 
an hour as possible after sunset. At every landing-place the au- 
thorities, having been apprised of our coming, are found awaiting 
us with the chairs, horses, camels, mules, and donkeys, needed. 
Whether we dine on board or in a ruined temple on the shore, 
the servants who attend us spread the table with the same abun- 
dant and delicate supplies as at Cairo. Our captain and crew 
belong to the naval service, and are skilful and polite. The cap- 
tain never fails personally to provide our Mocha coffee, flavored 
with attar of roses, as in the Turkish harem. Chibouques, exqui- 
sitely wrought and loaded with gems, are served at every meal by 
a personage whose sole duty in this life is to keep them safe and 
sweet. Instead of iced water, we have water cooled in porous 
earthen jars, which are hung over the stern of the boat. The wine 
is cooled by laying the bottles well corked in the troughs of the 
boat, and pouring a stream of river-water over them. A small 
Abyssinian monkey affords us infinite amusement by stealing these 
bottles, extracting the corks, pouring the wine into the gutter, and 
drinking it thence until he attains the height of human intoxica- 
tion. We attempted to correct this habit by chastising him, but he 
dropped from our hands into the river, and instantly disappeared. 
After searching river and bank three hours for him, we gave him 
up for lost, when, to our surprise, he appeared squatted on the seat 
of the life-boat which was swinffino- at the stern. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM ABYDOS TO THEBES. 

The Ruins of Abydos. — Ths Sheik of Bellianeh. — A Misunderstanding. — A Dinner in the 
Ruins. — A Night in the Temple.— Exploring the Ruins. — By whom were they built? 
— Germs of Religious Ideas. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Seward's Birthday. 

Abydos, May 15th. — Though we were unfortunate in reaching 
Bellianeh at a late hour last evening, we found sedan-chairs, fellahs, 
donkeys, and camels, awaiting us on the river-bank. The sheik 
of the district, and the United States vice-consul, a Copt, met us, 
and proceeded with us immediately to the ruins, where we now 
write. 

These ruins stand on the verge ot the Libyan Desert, and over- 
look the level plain of the Nile, here seven miles wide. Mr. Sew- 
ard came in a chair, the ladies on donkeys, the official persons on 
horseback, the servants, the beds, and the provisions for the night, 
on camels. It happened unavoidably that the procession broke 
into groups, which left some of its members without guides whom 
they could recognize. Night came on before we crossed the plain. 
"We arrived at an Arab village, passing through very narrow and 
crooked streets, and under low Moorish arches. There we alighted 
and climbed some stone steps, by the light of torches held out 
for our guidance. We entered a court, or chamber, which opens 
to the sky. How could we doubt that we were at least in the 
vestibule of the Temple of Memnon ? It was a surprise to have 
the room quickly though feebly lighted up, and to find the floor 



THE TEMPLE OF MEMNON. 527 

covered with Persian carpets, on which divans were placed, and to 
have Arab servants come in loaded with water-melons, rose-water, 
coffee, and chibouques. Impatient to bivouac, we asked for the 
rest of the party, but it did not come up. We now noticed that no 
part of our own furniture or baggage had come in. Was this the 
Temple of Memnon ? If not, Why and by whom were we received 
here with so much courtesy \ If it was that temple, it was a very 
small one for so great a god, besides being quite modern in archi- 
tecture, and built of adobe. "We demanded an explanation, and 
received it — in Arabic. We afterward learned that the Sheik of 
Bellianeh had opened his castle for our reception and entertain- 
ment during the night. This, although an excellent hospitality, 
was not • the feast to which we had bidden ourselves. That feast 
was to be served in the Temple of Memnon, in the excavated city 
of Abydos. It was not without much and earnest expostulation, 
nor without accidents of overturned chairs, and falls from the 
backs of the donkeys, that we reached the temple, two miles farther 
onward, and found the residue of the party there awaiting our 
arrival with much anxiety. So far as ancient temples are con- 
cerned, we had hitherto seen at Memphis only the place where 
they are supposed to have stood — at Heliopolis, an obelisk which 
graced the porch of the Temple of the Sun, and, at Ghizeh, a sub- 
terranean temple. So we were quite unprepared for the vast, im- 
posing, and perfect structure that now towered before us. We 
passed through the propjlozum, — a majestic gate-way flanked by 
lofty edifices on either side — into a vestibule, more spacious than 
any cathedral or church in the United States. Beyond this vesti- 
bule, we entered a court enclosed by grand open corridors, of which 
only the basement, a double colonnade, and the architraves, remain, 
the solid roof having entirely fallen in, the massive slabs remaining, 
with the exception of here and there one long since removed. 
This court is the inner vestibule of the temple. It was too dark to 
see more. Dinner had been laid in a long, dark chamber, which 
might be the nave of the temple, and our mattresses had been 
spread in high-vaulted chambers at the side. Were not these mag- 
nificent accommodations for travellers ? Perhaps our banqueting- 
40 



528 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

hall was the nuptial chamber of Isis and Osiris, perhaps it was the 
mausoleum of Memnon. Perhaps our sleeping-rooms were the 
sacristies of the priests who assisted at one or both of those ceremo- 
nies. We had scarcely sat down to the much-needed entertain- 
ment before we were smothered and sickened by an atmosphere of 
heat and mould. We beat a hasty retreat to the open corridor. 
Here we had for a table a broad granite slab, which had fallen from 
the roof many ages since. We dined with the shadows of the mas- 
sive columns projected over us by the torch-lights of our bearers. 
The ladies retired to their stately rooms, but a trial of half an hour 
proved sleep, and even life, impossible there. The pallets were 
brought out and spread on the floor of the open dining-hall. All 
were wakeful, and contemplated for hours this strange experience 
of sleeping in the Libyan Desert under the starlit sky. Our 
thoughts wandered through the past and in the infinite, but we were 
occasionally brought back by the heavy breathing of our sleep- 
ing, staff-armed Arabian sentinels, the braying of the donkeys, or the 
piteous moaning of the weary camels, at the outer verge of our un- 
rivalled chamber. 

We rose before the sun, and, while the air was yet comparatively 
cool, explored the edifice, which consists of seven parallel naves or 
complete buildings, each with a vaulted roof, each nave two hun- 
dred feet long, and terminating in an elaborate and imposing sanc- 
tuary. This peculiar form of the temple suggests the idea that it 
was dedicated to the worship, not of one god, but of seven gods. 
Archseologists, however, are not agreed on that point. Besides the 
naves and the sanctuaries, there are other spacious chambers, some 
behind the latter, and others behind the propylreum. Of these 
chambers some may be supposed to have contained vessels of sacri- 
fice, some sacred treasures, and others to have been the cells of the 
priests who were vowed to chastity, poverty, and penance. ~No part 
of the temple was adapted to the accommodation of a mass or con- 
gregation of worshippers. On the wall of an interior corridor is a 
tablet which contains a chronological record of the names and seals 
of seventy-six successive kings of Egypt, beginning with Menes, the 
founder of the monarchy and builder of Memphis, and ending with 



A QUESTION OF CHRONOLOGY. 529 

Setis, whose statue, with that of his son Rameses, stands at the base, 
as if reading the interesting genealogical record, a mutilated copy 
of which is preserved in the British Museum, and there called the 
" Stone of Abydos." Every part of the walls, the interior as well 
as the exterior, is covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics. Some 
of these pictures represent the birth of Osiris, his marriage with 
Isis, his death, and his apotheosis. They present him also in three 
beneficent characters, as the god of the Nile, the god of the sun, 
and the god of agriculture. And they exhibit Isis in her three at- 
tractive characters, as goddess of the moon, goddess of wine, and 
goddess of love. Other pictures present, nllegorically, Osiris, Isis, 
and their son Horus, as the benevolent deities receiving sacrifices, 
and the treacherous brother Typhon, who dethrones Osiris, as the 
god of evil — in other words, the devil. "With the benevolent dei- 
ties are associated animals of a gentle nature, also exalted to the 
divine, as in the Christian pictures of the middle ages the lamb is 
associated with the beloved disciple John. The ox is a sacred em- 
blem of Osiris, and the cow of Isis. The evil deity, likewise, has 
his brute representative in the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and 
the ass. 

The first inquiry that a disciple made, on hearing the fearful 
prophecy of the Saviour, was, " Master, when shall these things 
be ? " The first inquiry that a traveller makes, when he confronts 
the devastated walls of Abydos, is, "When were these things 
built ? " History records that Abydos flourished before the Persian 
conquest, and that it fell into ruin at the time of the Mohammedan 
invasion. Until the reign of the present Khedive, the vast ruins 
lay buried under a mean Arab- village. The hieroglyphics on the 
tombs at Abydos show that they were built within a period 
of nine hundred years, which period began with the year 3700 
before our era — of course, five' thousand five hundred and sev- 
enty years ago. The builders must have had some experience 
in architecture before these majestic structures, could be produced. 
If this account does not agree with Archbishop Usher's chronology, 
it is not for us to reconcile the conflict. History also has settled 
some other points of interest concerning this temple : First, that 



530 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

its construction was contemporary with the Egyptian obelisk at 
Luxor ; second, that it was dedicated to Osiris ; and, third, that 
it was called Memnonium. But where is the tomb of Osiris? 
The same veneration which the Christian world bestows on the 
sepulchre at Jerusalem was paid by the Egyptians to the tomb of 
Osiris. According to Plutarch, it was the destination of their 
pilgrimages in life, and the place near which, if circumstances 
allowed, they caused themselves to be buried. Adjacent to the 
great Temple of Abydos is the Temple of Rameses II. A dilapi- 
dated wall, now only four feet high, encloses an immense mass of 
debris. Mariette Bey confesses his inability to reproduce, from 
these ruins, the plan of the original structure. At the side of this 
Temple of Rameses there is a high hillock, called the Kom-ses-Sul- 
tan. This hillock has been formed by tiers of catacombs one above 
the other. Many valuable funereal treasures have already been 
removed to the museum at Cairo. Mariette Bey is encouraged, by 
discoveries already made, in his hope of finding among them the 
valuable tomb of Osiris. 

Let us now reflect a moment. "We have here, at Abydos, 
ascended to a very early age of human civilization. "We have 
learned from this study that in that age mankind were no less 
perplexed than they now are with the problem of the origin of 
good and evil; that, incapable of tracing the beneficent and 
injurious natural forces to a first and just Creator of both, they 
deified and worshipped those natural forces themselves, magnifying 
and blessing the good, and deprecating and propitiating the evil. 
In ancient times, nations were more isolated than now, but the 
perplexity of the human mind concerning good and evil was as 
universal then as it is now. Each nation improved and adopted 
any supposed discovery of another. The mythologies of Greece 
and Rome, supposed to clear up the mysterious origin of good and 
evil, were borrowed from Egypt, and it seems probable that those 
which still linger in Hindostan and China were brought from the 
same primitive source. Finally, we have learned here that the 
monastic and ascetic systems, which yet prevail in every part of 
Asia, and which still have a strong foothold among Christian na- 




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TEMPLE OF DENDERA. 531 

tions, existed here, under a theology which has untimely perished, 
leaving neither priest nor votary on the face of the globe. There 
are more reflections of a less general character. When the chil- 
dren of Israel insisted that Moses should set up a golden calf for 
their worship, did they do more than adopt the Egyptian dedica- 
tion of the ox and the cow to Osiris and Isis? Was the Egyptian 
apotheosis of the crocodile and the serpent the germ of the idea 
of the evil serpent which tempted our first parents to their fall in 
Eden ? Was it the germinal idea of the brazen serpent which 
Moses "lifted up?" Has the capacity of man for religious knowl- 
edge its limit, beyond which it cannot go, and is each of its various 
systems, although perverted, based on some intuitive idea or 
abused revelation? 

Kenneh, May 17th. — We planted our stake here at four o'clock 
yesterday afternoon, and immediately proceeded to explore the 
Temple of Dendera. It is more modern and better preserved, 
though less interesting, than the Memnonium. Its construction was 
begun by one of the Ptolemies, two hundred and fifty years before 
the Christian era, and was completed under the Emperor Tiberius, 
while our Saviour was yet living in Jerusalem. Some of its decora- 
tions were added in the reign of Nero. It has thus happened that, 
though it does not combine the profane with any thing sacred, it 
does combine illustrations of different profane systems. It com- 
bines the history, mythology, and science, of ancient Egypt. It is 
elaborate equally in design and execution. We can hardly count 
its halls and chambers. The walls, the ceilings, the columns, the 
doors, the windows, the capitals, the surbases and pedestals, and 
even the staircases, are crowded with texts and bass-reliefs. These 
have such a mutual correspondence that the antiquary finds it not 
difficult to penetrate their meaning, and even the ceremonies of 
worship. The temple was designed as a hall in which to celebrate 
the inauguration of the sovereign of Egypt in three characters, as 
King of Upper Egypt, King of Lower Egypt, and chief pontiff in 
the worship of Isis. The ceremonies consisted in stately proces- 
sions, sacrifices, prayers, and offerings. There is a well-marked 



532 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

division of the chambers into four groups : the first, a vestibule 
or open hall, in the place of the propylseum, which was customary 
in Egypt ; a grand gate- way, which was opened to the king alone ; 
with lesser ones on either side, which gave access to priests and 
others who brought offerings. A bass-relief on the north side shows 
the progress of the sovereign as King of Lower Egypt ; a similar 
tablet, on the opposite side, his entrance as King of Upper Egypt. 
In these ceremonies, two deities, Thoth, who was a brother of Isis 
(and whom the Greeks recognize as Mercury), and Horus, her son, 
pour on the king's head the water of purification. Two goddesses 
invest him with a double crown. Then, two deities, one from 
Heliopolis, in Upper Egypt, the other from Thebes, in Lower 
Egypt, take the king by the hand, and conduct him into the pres- 
ence of Isis. The second group of chambers, ten in number, were 
all closed and painted black. The procession was formed in one 
of these silent halls, and the offerings were prepared for a feast in 
another. The walls of one of them are ornamented with four boats, 
like those now in use on the Nile, the boats being carried in j*o- 
cession. Each of these boats contains, at the middle, a long chest 
or box, covered with a thick white veil. This chest corresponds 
exactly with the descriptions of the " ark of the covenant " which 
was held in such regard by the Jews. One of the chambers was a 
laboratory where incense, oils, and essences were prepared for per- 
fuming the statues of the gods. Others contained rich vestments 
for covering their limbs. The offerings to the gods, as painted 
on the walls, were all sorts of birds, animals, fine clothing, and 
ornaments of silver and gold. Instead of the one sanctuary, as at 
the Memnonium, there are two here, one dedicated to Osiris, the 
other to Isis. The former is ornamented with'a representation of 
his death, resurrection, and triumph. We were more interested, 
however, in a small interior structure, in the complete form of a 
temple, in which was celebrated the feast of the New Year, which 
took its date from a transit of Sirius. This hall has twelve columns, 
which are respectively dedicated to the several months. There is 
also a dark chamber of exquisite architecture which was used for 
the preservation of mysterious objects, which none but the king 



MR. SEWARD'S BIRTHDAY. 533 

and the pontiff were permitted to see. Stranger, however, than 
any of these are the labyrinthine subterranean chambers, properly 
called crypts. They are without doors or windows and yet their 
walls are covered with inscriptions, and these recite the date of 
their construction, but not their use. It is supposed that they were 
built as places of deposit and concealment of the treasures and 
sacred vessels and vestments, in case of surprise by an enemy. 
However this may be, we can never forget the demonstration of 
their present use, which we encountered. With the aid of torches, 
we crept on our knees through an opening which had been made 
in the wall that enclosed one of them. As we rose to our feet, 
there was a deafening noise, accompanied with a motion of the air, 
like the napping of the sails of a ship in a storm at sea, and thou- 
sands of frightened bats came dashing against us, making their 
way into the outer light, from which they had taken refuge. Cleo- 
patra caused the ornamentation of the outer wall to be completed 
with an intaglio of herself, and another of her son, the child of 
Juiius Caesar. This figure is inferior to the Grecian statuary of 
that period ; nevertheless, its outlines agree with the accepted rep- 
resentations of that eccentric and fascinating queen. 

Avoiding alike the darkened sanctuaries and the crypts, we 
spread our table in the cheerful temple of the New Year. There, 
with Osiris and Isis, and Thoth and Horus, Paseht, and we know 
not how many other deities looking down on us from the walls, we 
celebrated the anniversary of Mr. Seward's seventieth birthday. 
One of the party amused us by quoting from Homer, and applying 
to Mr. Seward, the words : 

. . . . " whose soul no respite knows, 
Though years and honors bid him seek repose." 

Mr. Seward answered, repeating the two other lines : 

" But now the last despair surrounds our host, 
Xo hour must pass, no moment must be lost." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THEBES AND ITS RUINS. 

What Thebes is now. — A GraDd Reception. — A Federal Salute. — The Scenery of the 
Nile. — The Temple of Luxor. — The Houses of the Consuls. — History of Luxor. — 
Karnak. — The Hall of the Gods. — King Shishak. — Sphinx Avenues. — We dine with 
the Vice-Consul. — The Colossi. — The Ancient Tombs. — The Tombs of the Kings. — 
Animal Worship. — The Rameseum. — Grandeur of Thebes. 

Thebes, May 17th. — From the first hour of our classic reading, 
Thebes is the one place which we have most desired, and least of 
all hoped, to see. But, we are here, moored under the east bank 
of the Nile, which once supported that glorious city of antiquity. 
We have come too late, by thousands of years, to verify the descrip- 
tions given of it by the poets and historians of old. There are 
no longer " a hundred gates " here, nor is there one gate, nor a 
wall, nor a trace of a wall. There are no monuments by which we 
could decide the disputed question whether the Diospolis, situated 
on the east bank of the Nile, and including Luxor and Karnak, 
was the whole of Thebes, or whether it extended across the river, 
and included the Colossi, the Memnonium, and the Necropolis. 

We must first note, not what Thebes was, but what it is now. 
Our deck is forty feet perpendicularly below the top of the bank. 
There was no wharf, no dock, no bund, no ghaut ; there is no 
stone stairway, there is no wooden one. In anticipation of our 
coming, the sheik (governor), by direction of Sultan Pacha, has ex- 
cavated steps in the loose, dry earth. They will serve us perhaps 
to reach the summit, but they will need to be repaired for our re- 



THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR. 535 

turn. Moreover, we are having a grand reception. Ali Murad 
Effendi, the loyal United States consul, although he is a true Mus- 
sulman, has not only displayed the broad and bright United States 
flag at his house-top, but also the gorgeous banner of Brazil, and 
at this moment he is pouring down upon us, with a single rusty 
musket, a Federal salute of eighteen guns, from his balcony. All 
the people of Thebes are on the bank to receive us. They consist 
of twelve mule-drivers, with their mules ; twelve donkey-drivers, 
with their asses ; ten or a dozen manufacturers and vendors of 
antiquities and relics, and with an outside attendance of as 
many fellahs, brought here by the unusual sight of bonfires kin- 
dled on the bank. We ascend, we reach the summit, we stand 
upon the sacred plain, we dismiss the muleteers and donkey- 
boys for the night, we thread our way through a musty Arab vil- 
lage to the consulate. In the upper chambers we pay our acknowl- 
edgments, take Mocha coffee, and a chibouque. 

May ISth. — The bonfires went out late last night, and we rose 
early this morning to make a first survey. The scenery of the 
Nile is at no other time seen in such delicate hues as in the hour 
before sunrise. Above Thebes, the river winds around the foot of 
the Arabian Desert, forming a chain of small gray lakes. The head- 
lands in these lakes are crowned with scattering farms, and not only 
the outlines of each tree, but every broad leaf, is distinctly defined 
on the clear horizon. A mirage from afar reflects the same desert, 
lakes, headlands, and trees, gathered into cool, shady groves — in- 
distinct and dreamy pictures, like those in mountain agates. 

Forty rods from the river-bank, on a terrace of sand, which 
seems to be a lower ridge of the dome, there rise before us two rows 
of majestic columns, roofless, but held together by architraves not 
less massive. Familiar all our lives with pictorial representations, 
we recognize the ruined Temple of Luxor. Beyond that ruin, with 
the exception of here and there a mud-hut, is only the naked desert ; 
at the left of the colonnade, heaps of debris, half buried in the sand. 
In the midst of these masses, towers up a red granite obelisk, high- 
er and newer than the honey-combed one which marks the site of 



536 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis. Beyond these debris, looking 
through the vista formed by the colonnade and obelisk, are seen the 
dwarfish minarets of a shabby Arab mosque, rising out of a group 
or cluster of adobe huts, an Arab village, which may contain fifteen 
hundred people. Three tall, modem houses loom up above the 




OBELISK8 AT KARNAK. 



roofless dwellings of the wretched town. These houses are built on 
the wall of the dilapidated temple, and of materials taken from it, 
and are the residences of the governor, the British consul, and the 
United States vice-consul, who also flourishes under an exequatur 



ORIGIN OF LUXOR. 537 

as consul of Brazil. We ascended the terrace and stood on the 
pavement beneath the double colonnade. At a distance of two 
miles northward, among fields which, though now dry and dusty, 
still wear the aspect of careful cultivation, we see the stupendous 
gate-ways, columns, and obelisks of Karnak. An Arab hamlet nes- 
tles at the base of these ruins, as at Luxor. Beyond Karnak we see 
only the winding river and the converging Libyan and Arabian Des- 
erts. Turning our back upon the morning sun, we see, across the 
river, a plain, stretching along the opposite bank for five miles, and 
three miles in width, cultivated though uninhabited, subject tc in- 
undation. Beyond the plain are the lofty and irregular moun- 
tains of the Libyan Desert. The immediate river-bank is fringed 
with palms and sycamores. At the northern extremity of the plain 
we distinguish a cluster of stately columns; on the left, a like, 
though less prominent one. The former are ruins of the temples 
called by the Arabs Qournah-De'ir-el-Bahari, and the Rameseum. 
The latter are the ruins of the temple called, in Arabic, Medeenet 
Haboo. Midway between these widely-separated heaps of ruins, 
are two lofty stone piles, each showing a human outline. These 
are the Colossi — the one so marvellously vocal to the ancients; 
Uie other, its mute companion. Those ruined temples, with the 
Colossi, are all that remain of Thebes, on the west bank of the Nile, 
that can be discerned within a single view taken from Luxor. 
Those ruins, with Luxor and Karnak, are the disjecta membra of 
the great capital. 

We turn to Luxor. It was built by Pharaoh Amenophis III., 
fourteen hundred and eighty years before Christ, at the very time 
when the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram was going on in the 
desert. Eighty years later, Kameses II. raised two monolith granite 
obelisks beyond the colonnade. One of these we have already 
mentioned ; the other we hope to see in its present site in the Place 
de la Concorde at Paris. He raised, at the same time, two mono- 
lith granite statues, not less than twenty-five feet high, which are 
now seen broken off at the middle, and prostrate on the ground. 
The colonnade, the almost level walls, the solitary obelisk, and 
those broken colossal statues, together with many lesser ones 



538 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

dedicated to gods, heroes, and animals, some remaining in place, 
and others strewed among the debris, are all that remain of the 
original Luxor. After the conquest of the Greeks, other orna- 
mental statues, paintings, and inscriptions, were added to the 
temple, among which latter are found the names of Psammetichus 
and Alexander. It is to be hoped that the work of excavation, 
long s nee suspended, will be renewed. In that case it will prob- 
ably appear that the temple structures extended much farther for- 
ward. The ruins as now seen, while thej command admiration by 
their grandeur, leave on the visitor's mind a painful impression of 
the narrow extent of the temple. 

W3 encounter no such disappointment at Karnak. It is the 
most imposing ruin in the world, devastated sadly, but not in a 
heap of debris. The ruins cover an area of nearly two miles in 
circumference. Was there one symmetrical structure, dedicated to 
one worship, or was there a combination of many temples, dedi- 
cated to many gods 1 The former idea is supported by the fact 
that there are still traceable twelve approaches to the ruins, in dif- 
ferent directions, each avenue broad enough for two chariots. We 
explored two of them, of which half a mile has been excavated. 
One leads from Luxor ; the other, at right angles with the first, leads 
from the river-bank in front. Each is ornamented with a row 
of colossal Sphinxes, placed at intervals of six feet, not unlike the 
statuary which adorns the approach to the Ming Tombs in China. 
The entrances at the terminations of these avenues are surmounted 
by gate-ways such as a Titan might construct, and these gate-ways 
open into a series of propyleea, or vestibules, which have dimensions 
that can only be compared with the bases of the Pyramids. Our 
first visit to Karnak was made at the end of the avenue of Luxor. 
It is adorned with a winged sun. "We passed through four succes- 
sive propylsea into an open area, which has received so many names 
as to be practically nameless. Some writers call it the " Hall of 
the Gods," some the " Hall of the Kings," others the " Hall of 
Columns." It is three hundred and thirty feet long, and one hun- 
dred and sixty-four feet wide. On each side of it, near the wall, is 
a row of columns, one hundred and thirty-four in number. They 



COLUMNS AT KARNAK. 



539 



are forty-three feet high, and each is a monolith, with a diameter 
of twelve feet. In the centre of the hall are two other rows of 
columns, seventy-two feet high, also monoliths, and the several 
rows have the effect of dividing the hall into a nave with two side- 
aisles. All were roofed, the nave, of course, higher than the aisles. 
The ceiling of all was of massive hewn flat stone ; it has long since 
fallen to the ground. All the columns have highly-wrought and 
magnificent capitals, no two of them alike in design. The columns 
nearest the walls are chiefly ornamented with the flowering lotus ; 




COLUMNS AT KARNAK. 



41 



540 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the columns which support the nave combine figures of birds with 
the lotus leaves and branches. The surfaces of the pillars are di- 
vided into circular panels, arranged one above the other. These 
panels are covered with shields, on which are elaborately carved 
and painted with rich colors innumerable mythological and his- 
torical devices and emblems. The darkness of this stupendous 
chamber was only relieved by the faint light admitted through 
small grated windows placed in the wall which divided the ceiling 
of the nave and that of the aisles. Some of the columns in the 
chamber are now prostrate, others have swerved from their places 
and fallen against other columns, or against the walls. The mys- 
terious gloom which must have originally pervaded the chamber 
has passed away, and it now seems merely an endless and confused 
forest of columns, which has been swept and desolated by the tem- 
pest. Though an inscription on one of these noble columns shows 
an antiquity of three thousand three hundred and twenty years, 
the masonry, as well as the sculpture and painting, has the fresh- 
ness of yesterday. In no part of the ruin, either on column, archi- 
trave, or wall, is there ivy or moss, mould or stain. Such is the 
climate of the Nile. Bold bass-reliefs sculptured on the outer wall 
represent, in regular chronological order, the events of the cam- 
paigns of Setis against the Bedouin Arabs, the Assyrians, and the 
Armenians. In one of those sculptures he is seen seated in his 
chariot in the thickest of an engagement, On the forehead of one 
of his horses is inscribed his name — " The Might of Thebes." 
The enemy flee before him, and take refuge in a fortress. An- 
other bass-relief presents a different battle-scene Here the enemy 
fall prostrate on the earth before the terrible countenance of ma- 
jesty. The king sits proudly erect in his chariot in his attitude of 
triumph, followed by a train of prisoners in chains, whom he pre- 
sents to the gods at Thebes. Another represents the victorious 
king on his return to Thebes, and welcomed by his ministers and 
courtiers on the banks of the Nile, which are crowded with won- 
dering, awe-stricken crocodiles. One of the bass-reliefs is particu- 
larly interesting, from its being a contemporaneous confirmation of 
Jewish scriptural history : 



KING SHISHAK. 541 

" And it came to pass that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, 
Shishak, King of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, because they 
had transgressed against the Lord, with twelve hundred chariots, 
and threescore thousand horsemen : and the people were without 
number that came with hinr out of Egypt ; the Lubims, the Suk- 
kims, and the Ethiopians." 

" So Shishak, King of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, and 
took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures 
of the king's house ; he took all : he carried away also the shields 
of ffold which Solomon had made." 

Shishak is represented raising his arm and striking a long group 
of prisoners who are crouching at his feet. At the side of the 
victor are seen several fortifications which bear the names of towns 
in Palestine, which Shishak subdued. Still another tablet on the 
walls must be mentioned. It recites the entire text of an Egyptian 
poem, composed in commemoration of the victories of Rameses II. 
The obelisk of Queen Hatason, which is said to be the highest in 
the world, stands near the great hall, on a pedestal of dimensions 
scarcely larger than the foot of the Obelisk itself. What skill must 
it have required to raise it from the ground, and place it securely 
on that narrow pedestal ! An inscription, written perpendicularly 
on the obelisk, gives its date and dedication to Queen Hatason, 
regent, three thousand five hundred and thirty years ago. An 
inscription on the base records that the top was covered with gold, 
the spoils of battle, and that the obelisk itself was gilded. 

The court or area which lies between the temple and the propy- 
lsea on the river-side presents a scene not less unique than melan- 
choly. It is larger even than the Hall of Columns, which we have 
described. It is studded with pedestals even more numerous than, 
and equally gigantic with, those in the other hall, each one of which 
bore a column equally majestic ; over these must have been stretched 
a roof as stupendous and massive. But of this vast structure, not 
only the roof, but all the columns have fallen, save only one, yet 
erect on its pedestal, as a solitary representative of the departed 
grandeur. Making a circuit around the ruins of Karnak, we found 
a great reservoir of Nile-water, collected as it oozes through the 



542 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

soil underneath the temple, at the flood. It is so deeply impreg- 
nated with nitre, that the Government uses its deposits for the 
manufacture of gunpowder. From the bank of this reservoir we 
looked upward through one of the excavated Sphinx avenues. It 
now presents a very curious spectacle. The great highway is 
fenced in, its pavement has been removed or buried in the earth, 
and it is now a vegetable-garden. The Sphinxes, however, still 
remain on guard, to prevent Bedouin depredations of water-melon 
and sweet-potato beds, as patiently as they guarded of old the 
approach of kings and priests to the sanctuary. While we stood 
musing on the strange freaks of Time, a hyena, startled by the noise 
of our coming, rushed out of a recess underneath one of the fallen 
columns, among the debris which we had been unable to penetrate, 
and made his escape over the sands to some safer haunt in the 
desert. 

Antiquaries are much exercised with the inquiry, By what 
agency has the devastation of Karnak been effected % They indulge 
in various conjectures. One attributes the work to the earthquake ; 
but there is no record of earthquakes. A second, that one of the 
Ptolemies committed the devastation by siege. But those princes 
seem to have been disposed rather to preserve and embellish the 
magnificent monuments of Egypt, than to destroy them. A third, 
that the nitrous Nile-water has dissolved the earthen foundations. 
But, making all allowances for the absence of frost, of snow, and of 
rain, in this extraordinary climate, is it not more wonderful that 
Karnak resisted so long, than that it is now found so slowly pnssing 
away? 

With the conquest of Cambyses, the ancient Egyptian church 
and state (to the glories of which Karnak was dedicated) began to 
decline. They gave way to religions and governments which were 
hostile. Other systems, equally alien and hostile, have followed. 
It is more than two thousand years since Egypt has had for a ruler 
either an adherent of the ancient religion, or a descendant of the 
ancient kings or people. We saw Karnak first in broad daylight, 
but afterward in the early night illuminated by the evanescent blue 
light; but we saw it last under the bright moonlight, which, while 



THE COLOSSI. 543 

it subdues irregularities, deepening and lengthening the shadows, 
imparts new majesty and beauty to all objects of Nature and art. 

Leaving the ruin, we mounted our donkeys, and by the light 
of blazing torches made our way through Sphinx avenue back to 
Luxor, stopping at times to look whether a fox that we saw steal 
through the gate-way, or a hyena, was at our heels. We arrived 
safely at the consulate, and there, seated on cushions on the hos- 
pitable house-top, around a table one foot high, we dined after the 
Turkish manner, with the vice-consul, the governor being also a 
guest, upon the substantial, dainties, and delicacies of the season. 
At this feast, each party, taking care not to interfere with the equal 
rights of others, dipped the spoon into a common bowl of soup, and 
with his own fingers took off the parts he liked best in a succession 
of kids, sheep, and turkeys, roasted whole. These viands gave 
place to a long course of sweets and comfits, water-melons, dates, 
and apricots. Coffee and chibouques followed with chateau Mar- 
gaux, Steinberger cabinet, champagne, and sherry, all brought 
from the pantry of the Crocodile. Here we poured out libations 
to Ammon, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, such as certainly were unknown 
to ancient Thebes, and such as only those good Mohammedans who 
attain the dignity of foreign consuls permit their Christian guests 
to enjoy. The excellent host and the governor did not disdain to 
join in these offerings — a circumstance which we should not men- 
tion if we supposed these notes would ever be translated into Arabic. 

May 19th. — It was yet dark when we took a small boat and 
rowed down the Nile. We landed on the low, western, sandy 
bank, and proceeded on donkeys directly across the plain. Under 
the light of the rising sun, the distant Colossi assumed more and 
more their proper and majestic forms and proportions. We halted 
between them. Recognized by antiquity as one of the wonders of 
the world, they are less wonderful than the dispute which has so 
long prevailed in regard to the purpose for which they were built. 
Thebes must have been a city of religious, philosophic, and political 
ideas. The people dwelt chiefly on the eastern bank of the river, 
while the western bank became their cemeterv. Neither at Luxor 



544 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

nor at Karnak did we find a trace of an ancient tomb or grave. 
On the western bank here, we found little else than a universal 
cemetery. All modern cemeteries are ornamented with monumen- 
tal gate-ways, churches, and chapels. What more natural than that 
the portals of the cemetery of Thebes should be graced with these 
two colossal statues ? Amenophis III. dedicated them to deified 
kings. He designed by them to impress the pilgrims to the tombs 
with awe, and he was successful. In a superstitious age, not only 
the Egyptian, but the Persian, Greek, and Roman, heard or ima- 
gined that he heard, the statue which bears the traditional name of 
Memnon, wail and sigh in the tones of the ^Eolian harp. More- 
over, Memnon was the son of Aurora. How natural it was that he 
should greet his divine mother morning and evening ! Nobody 
believes this story now, but, two thousand years ago, no one doubted 
it. The Colossi are sixty feet high, in a sitting posture, indicating 
contemplation. While Thebes remained to its Egyptian founders, 
the Colossi, which originally were monoliths, retained their shape, 
and Memnon continued his mysterious, oracular utterances. But 
an earthquake shattered both. Memnon's voice became feeble ; 
nay, it began to be questioned whether he spoke at all. The good 
Roman emperor, Septimus Severus, reconstructed them, employing 
the best architects to restore Memnon's speech. But the imperial 
surgery failed. Memnon became actually dumb. Happily, the 
repairs then made, although with coarse materials, have preserved 
the statue to the present day. 

Men's habits are formed from their instincts. Egypt excited 
strong interest in Rome in the time of the emperors. The Roman 
travellers ambitiously inscribed, on the pedestal of Memnon, the 
records of their visits and observations. Woman was woman 
eighteen hundred years ago. "I, Salina Augusta, wife of the Em- 
peror Augustus Csesar, have twice heard Memnon within one 
hour." This is one of the inscriptions. There are hundreds of 
other inscriptions which, although written so long ago, are more 
easily read now than those written • twenty years ago in our coun- 
try church-yards. Under the necessity of improving the cooler part 
of the day, for fatiguing observations a 11 ! explorations, we passed, 



THE MUMMY-PITS. 545 

without stopping, the ruins of DeTr-el-Medineh, Medeenet Haboo, 
and the Hameseum. A mountain-spur of white sand-rock projects 
here toward the river-bank. Upon the ledge we found the rock 
pierced with parallel tiers of catacombs. These catacombs, not 
improperly called mummy- pits, are four, eight, or ten feet deep. 
We soon became weary of counting them. Each one has been 
robbed of its contents. History, we know not how truly, says that 
the depredations began with the Arab conquest. If this be true, 
then it would appear that at the very period when the nations of 
Western Africa were selling their living children into slavery to 
Europeans, the dwellers in Eastern Africa were selling the remains 
of the dead as objects of curiosity to the same men. The Arab 
invaders of Egypt did not stop at this ; they used the inflammable 
mummy-cases for fuel, and the grave-clothes for lights. We may 
judge of the extent of this past trade in mummies, from the collec- 
tions which are found in Europe and America. The Khedive has 
put a stop to these barbarous spoliations. Of course, the great 
mass of the dead yet remain hidden and undisturbed. Calculations, 
based on the estimated population of Thebes, and the average dura- 
tion of human life, give the number of bodies which are buried in 
this necropolis alone at eight or ten millions. Having crossed the 
ledge, we entered a dark and rugged mountain-pass, leading to the 
desert. Here, the cemetery shows another character ; elaborate 
and costly tombs have been excavated on either side of the ravine, 
in the form of square chambers, and in tiers or terraces, all built so 
as to command a view of the plain below. As we looked up from 
our path into these excavations, we mistook them for deserted bat- 
teries. We deviated so as to look into two or three of them. 
They consist invariably of an antechamber, like a chapel, which 
communicates by a stone staircase with a narrow tomb below. It 
is supposed that the relatives and friends of the deceased were 
accustomed to assemble in the outer chamber. The walls, as well 
as the ceilings of the chamber, are richly ornamented with sculp- 
tures, intaglios and paintings, the colors of which are as clear and 
bright as if laid on yesterday. The subjects of these ornaments are 
sometimes religious rites, sometimes events in the life and career 



5±6 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

of the dead. One of them exhibits the deceased as general of the 
Soudan, arriving among a motley people, and taking possession of 
his government. Some of his subjects are negroes, have olive com- 
plexions and negro features ; others have Circassian features with 
olive complexions. Some are red men, and, strange to say, there is 
a mixture of white women. The animals of that region are painted 
with considerable effect. There are giraffes, oxen with long horns, 
and oxen with their legs terminating in human hands. Presents 
are brought to the governor, of gold rings and vases, bronze and 
silver horses and lions, silver oars for boats, and ostrich-feathers. 
The inscriptions carry us back to the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty. 
Farther onward, the same pass branches into two ravines. Here is 
the Westminster Abbey, or rather the St.-Denis, of ancient Egypt. 
One ravine seems to have been appropriated to the tombs of queens, 
the other to the tombs of kings. The paths which lead to both are 
indescribably rugged and desolate. The rocks in which these tombs 
are excavated, never receiving rain or dew, seem to be heated with 
internal fires. Massive door-ways of the tombs are opened into the 
face of the mountain ; then a descending, smooth, inclined plane 
conducts to the tombs, which are excavated at a lower depth of the 
rock. The tombs consist of a succession of vaulted chambers of 
various dimensions ; some are only twenty feet square, some forty, 
eighty, or a hundred feet long, and proportionately wide. Some- 
times one chamber opens directly into another in a straight line, 
while there are larger chambers on either side. Sometimes a cor- 
ridor traverses the tomb. The outer chambers have, as in the cata- 
combs before mentioned, audience-chambers or chapels. Many of 
them are obviously built as banqueting-rooms for costly entertain- 
ments of friends of the dead. 

Strabo, in the first century, described the tombs of the kings. 
He gave their number at forty. Only twenty-five of these have 
been opened. This has been a task of no small difficulty, because 
in every case the cave was found not only hermetically sealed, but 
the door-way itself was covered with a debris so artificially heaped 
as to baffle search for the sacred place. All travellers describe one 
of these tombs which was discovered by Belzoni some fifty years 



THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 547 

ago, and called by him the tomb of Setis. It is the most magnifi- 
cent of them all. Strange to say, though it was so carefully hidden, 
it had already been violated when he opened it. "Within this and 
t-ie other tombs, the visitor penetrates a world entirely different 
from that which we inhabit. The entire life of the deceased is 
presented in monumental painting, sculpture, and hieroglyphics, on 
the walls of the successive chambers. He is seen at home with his 
family. Every thing around him wears a chimerical aspect. He is 
holding intercourse with gods in grotesque forms, unknown else- 
where. Long, slimy serpents glide through the chambers and lie 
around the door. Manifestly this is the scene of the trial and judg- 
ment of the dead. All the arrangements of the chamber and its 
embellishments are designed to produce an effect of awe and so- 
lemnity. Scenes of cruelty and torture are represented by hideous 
figures ; culprits and prisoners are undergoing death by decapita- 
tion or by burning. These, indeed, are very unnatural ; but who 
shall say that, considering the early age to which they belong, they 
are more absurd than the fantastical torture of the wicked in the 
conceptions of Dante and Michael Angelo % 

Antiquaries suppose that the scenes of torture and cruelty 
painted on the walls were designed to illustrate the trial through 
which the deceased is passing in his successive animal transfor- 
mations preparatory to a happy resurrection on the earth. The 
idea finds support in the historical fact that, according to the 
Egyptian polity, kings were supposed always to undergo a trial 
after death. 

These chambers of cruelty and torture are succeeded by others, 
which are more cheerful in aspect. Here the ornamentation illus- 
trates the process of purification through which the soul is passing. 
The last chamber, always the lowest, shows its happy reception 
into the family of the gods. In these happier chambers the walls 
are covered with hieroglyphics, in which the wandering soul recites 
the praises of the gods, and at last, the trial being past, the soul 
celebrates its triumph. After examining minutely the tomb of 
Setis, we looked into that of Rameses II. Here there is a suite of 
chambers on either side of the great reception-hall. These chain- 



548 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

bers present numberless simply natural scenes. There are boats, 
furniture, utensils, bows, arrows, and other weapons. Musicians 
play on the lyre. The chambers in this tomb, moreover, are not 
arranged in a straight line, but in the shape of a T, or cross. This 
difference from the customary form is found to have been a depart- 
ure from the original plan of construction. If the excavation had 
been carried straight forward, it would have invaded a tomb already 
built. In this tomb of Rameses was found a red-granite sarcopha- 
gus cut in the form of a shield. Sad to say, this beautiful ceno- 
taph is now on exhibition in the museum of the Louvre at Paris, 
and its lid graces the University of Cambridge. 

The one feature of Egyptian civilization, which in modern times 
seems to be the most absurd, is the importance they assigned to 
brute animals. They not only worshipped in idol-forms the ox and 
the cow, but they embalmed and buried with religious rites fishes, 
crocodiles, cats, and dogs, and one of the pyramids at Saccara is the 
receptacle of mummied birds only. So we have found everywhere 
similar relics. Doubtless the ancient Egyptian faith regarded the 
animal forms which they thus preserved as the tenements of the 
souls of monarcks, friends, or enemies. 

It was quite eleven o'clock when, on our return from the tombs 
of the kings, we came back to the tomb Deir-el-Medeenet. This 
temple was a structure built in honor of the Queen-regent Hatason, 
whose obelisk at Karnak we have already mentioned. The temple 
was raised after her death to commemorate the glory of her admin- 
istration. A series of courts rise one above another by terraces, 
giving the structure the appearance of a fortification or ramparts. 
Its embellishments consist of tableaux, which show us Hatason re- 
ceiving her counsellors at the court of her brother Thoutmosis II. ; 
as regent under her brother Thoutmosis III. ; and last as herself, a 
sovereign ; of armies marching out to conquest, of battles and con- 
quests in Arabia, of prisoners taken and tributes received, of vessels 
riding the Nile, laden with treasures and spoils ; and, among others, 
one of marked mythological intent, presenting the Egyptian goddess 
identical with the Grecian Yenus, in the form of a beautiful cow 
suckling an infant Egyptian king. 



THE EAMESEUM. 549 

We have seen no temple resembling the Rameseum, the Temple 
of Rameses III. It is a combination of temple and royal palace. 
The architecture of the palatial part is perfect. Consoles prepared 
for holding awnings over the doors are supported by prostrate pris- 
oners of war. At great hazard we climbed over a high, broken 
wall, and reached chambers in a second story. In these chambers 
are bass-reliefs, much defaced, which represent the king in his own 
house surrounded by his family. One woman presents him with 
flowers, he plays chess with another, and receives fruit from an- 
other with a caress. On the walls of another chamber the great 
achievements of the king are presented. Here a picture of the 
king is deciphered and explained by Champollion : " He leaves his 
palace in a richly-ornamented chariot. He sits covered with ostrich- 
feathers on a throne supported by statues of Justice and Truth ; he 
is attended by twelve aides-de-camp, and is followed by relations, 
friends, and priests ; his son and heir burns incense before him. 
The white bull follows, and the procession is closed by nineteen 
priests, bearing sacred ensigns, vases, and vessels of worship. Fi- 
nally arrived at the place of inauguration, four birds, the offspring 
of Osiris, are set loose to announce to the north, the south, the 
east, and the west, that Rameses has put on his crown." The 
electric telegraph of the ancients ! Ten galleries contain tableaux 
illustrative of the military achievements of the king. We recog 
nize the nationalities of prisoners of war, though the pictures were 
made three thousand years ago. Among them are Libyans, Ara- 
bians, and Ethiopians. How curious it is to find among the captives 
the Philistines, who so long maintained war Math the Israelites ! 
A legend over the head of each prisoner gives his name. Ambition 
seems to have done little else but repeat itself since the time of 
Rameses. One picture exhibits a basket filled with the hands of 
prisoners, which were cut off on the battle-field, and brought to the 
king as trophies. This practice, though it antedates by far the North- 
American custom of scalping the deceased enemy, is akin to it. 
The Rameseum was for Egypt what the triumphal arch of Adrian 
was for Rome, what the Arc de Triomphe is for France. Here is 
the speech which one of the Egyptian gods addresses to a victorious 



550 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

chief: " I turn my face to the north, and I see Phoenicia lying at 
your feet ; it is my will that the natives bring you their silver, their 
gold, and their precious stones. I look eastward, and I see Arabia 
furnishing you with perfumes, rare woods, and fruits. 1 turn my 
face to the west, and I command the inhabitants of Libya to render 
you their homage." 

Wherein does the Trumbull Gallery in the rotunda of the Cap- 
itol at Washington differ from the ten triumphal galleries of the 
Rameseum % 

A gigantic statue of the great Rameses at full length, and 
scarcely less majestic than Memnon, has been shaken from its base 
and broken iuto massive fragments, its face upward, and half buried 
in the sand. What a prototype is this of the overthrow of the 
Colonne Yendome and the gigantic imperial statue which crowned 
it in the late revolution in France ! 

While Memphis was the capital of ancient Egypt, Thebes was 
the chosen seat of science and religion. It was an ornamental city, 
the pride of the Egyptians. We do not, indeed, find here all that 
Homer describes, but we are not at liberty to regard his description 
of Thebes as an exaggeration. Certainly the kings and the people 
who raised Karnak and Luxor, the Memnonium, the Rameseum and 
the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the tombs of the kings and queens, 
may well be believed to have had the necessary wealth, strength, 
and taste, to surround the city of their pride with a wall which was 
pierced with a hundred gates, and to send from each gate two hun- 
dred knights and two hundred chariots. 

Medeenet Haboo teaches an important lesson. This ancient 
temple was, until lately, completely buried under a mean and 
M r retched Arab village. In the process of excavation, not only the 
original Egyptian temple was found, but a Christian church, with 
pi liars, cornices, architraves, chancel, and oratorio, on Greek models. 
The penury of Grecian architecture compared with the majesty of 
the ancient Egyptian was never so effectually illustrated. The col- 
umns of Osiris are sixty feet high and thirty-six feet in diameter, 
and, with their lotus-leaved capitals, fill an area of an acre. The 
Christian church is crowded within a quarter of that area. Its 



A SAFE PREDICTION". 



551 



fluted columns are eighteen feet high, and seven feet in circum- 
ference. 

We have finished our survey of Thebes, we have noticed the 
devastation made by the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, the Chris- 
tian, and the Arab, and how much, after all, remains ? It is safe 
to predict that, when every civil and religious edifice now exist- 
ing in Europe or the United States shall have fallen to the earth, 
the already dilapidated monuments of Egypt will have undergone 
scarcely a perceptible change. 




CAPITALS OF COLUMNS AT KSN'RII. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ESNEH, EDFOU, ASSOUAN, AND PHILuE. 

The Coptic Convents. — Youssef and his Donkey. — Our Steamer aground. — The Ruins of 
Esneh. — The Temple of Edfou. — Assouan. — Its Surprising Activity. — Its African 
Population. — The Ancient Quarries. — Philas and the Cataracts of the Nile. — A Mon- 
ument of the First French Republic. 

Esneh, May %lst. — If time would allow, it would be an interest- 
ing task to visit the Coptic convents which are found in small and 
poor villages on the desert verge. Their history is a touching one. 
They were founded as a refuge for the Coptic Christians from, a 
decree of the Emperor Diocletian, and they were again sought as 
an asylum by the Copts — who had become Christians, when driven 
away by the Mussulman conquerors from their home at Medeenet 
Haboo. Their present tenants are represented as being very poor, 
and as retaining of Christianity little more than a ritual of the early 
Church. 

The courteous governor and the hospitable consul took leave of 
us at a late hour on the night of the 19th, with good wishes for the 
voyage we were about to resume. Our favorite English-speaking 
donkey-boy, Youssef, petitioned us to take him with us to the 
United States, but he depends on his vocation to support his wid- 
owed mother. "We raised steam and cast off from the bank at day- 
light, passed Edfou without stopping, but either our pilot was at 
fault, or sand-bars had suddenly changed. We came to a dead stop. 
Sultan Pacha, at that moment, coming down the river with his 



RUINS OF ESNEH. 



553 



steamer of lighter draught, threw us a rope, and drew us over the 
obstructions. So we fixed our stake on the bank at Esneh. It is a 
small village, whose principal occupation it is to coal the govern- 
ment steamers. There is here an Egyptian temple, which is 
approached closely at high water. "We, however, were obliged to 
traverse a sandy plain, a mile wide, under the noonday sun. The 
ruins, like those of Medeenet Haboo, were buried beneath an Arab 
village, a part of which still remains. Only the great hall of the tem- 




ViU'KSEF AND HIS DONKKY. 



pie has been excavated. Unfortunately, this chamber is discolored by 

smoke ; doubtless it was used ignominiously by the Arabs. The 

spectator is struck by seeing on the ceiling a perfect table of the 

zodiac, in which all the circumferential emblems are identical with 

those of our own tables of the constellations, excepting Cancer, the 

Crab, which resembles the scarabseus or sacred beetle. The ancient 

Egyptian ornamentation of the great hall has given place to more 

modern embellishments — among them the shields of the Roman 

Emperors Claudius, Domitian, Septimus Severus, Commodus, and 
42 



554 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

Caracalla. The bass-reliefs and sculptures are in a low style of art, 
showing a great decline in sculpture and painting after the Persian 
and Greek conquest, but these faults are redeemed by the surpass- 
ing beauty of the columns. They prove that, for a time at least, 
Egyptian architecture improved under the Grecian chisel. There 
are twenty-five of these columns, each with an exquisite capital, 
but no two alike. The lotus is the principal ornament of all of 
them, and is treated at every stage of its development. Doubtless 
the religious ideas of the Egyptians underwent a modification, after 
the Grecian conquest, not unlike their principles of art. 

Edfou, May %2d. — "We reached Edfou last night, and were wel- 
comed by bonfires which extended a mile along the river-bank. 
We hastened through the little village, to explore the celebrated 
temple. Its excavation has been one of the most successful achieve- 
ments of the Khedive. A dozen years ago, men dwelt, horses 
travelled, bread was baked, and goods were sold, on its roof; and, 
if the Arab ever planted trees around his dwelling, their roots 
would have effected an entrance into the sacred chambers of the 
gods. Like the temple at Dendera, it has an immense propylaeum, 
and a vast number of chambers. The whole, happily, is so well 
preserved, that an architect finds no difficulty in reproducing the 
original plan and arrangement. So Edfou serves as a key to many 
ruined temples which, like Karnak, have been unintelligible. This 
temple bears the signature of the architect, which, in justice to 
him, we transcribe : 

"El-EM-HOTEP OeR-SI-PhTAH." 

(Imouthosis, Grandson of Phtah.) 

Like the temple at Esneh, this one at Edfou is modern. It was 
begun by Ptolemy Philopater 204 b. c, and completed with decora- 
tions only in 34 b. c. Our discontent, at finding ourselves in a tem- 
ple only two thousand years old, was relieved when we went into 
the sanctum, sanctorum, and found a huge vault or chest cut out of 
one solid block of granite, and which was the depository of the 
mysterious emblems of the temple which, in earlier and happier 



ASSOUAN. 555 

times, had covered the site of the modern structure. This vault 
bears an inscription which cites that it was wrought into its present 
shape at the quarry by order of King Nectanebus, who nourished 
three hundred and fifty years before this temple was built. The 
dimensions of the temple are : width, one hundred and thirty-one 
feet ; depth, two hundred and thirty-six feet. The ornamentations 
are of the same general character as those at Dendera, consisting 
mainly of representations of sacred ceremonies and mythological 
devices. The work is not less elaborate, and the coloring, owing 
perhaps to the excavation being new, is as fresh and bright as if 
put on yesterday. Betts Bey's illumination of this wonderful hall 
by blue lights was the most magnificent pyrotechnic exhibition that 
can be imagined. 

Assouan, May 22d. — The river above Edfou contracts to the 
width of one thousand feet. The sedgy deserts become precipitous 
banks, and you can step upon the rocks on either side from the 
boat. So we notice that we are nearing the cataract. Though the 
desert is now so solitary and desolate, the caverns, excavated in 
terraces, indicate that, in some way, a vast population once filled 
this narrow, forbidding strait. Many of the caves exhibit the 
hieroglyphics associated by the ancients with their tombs. Others 
seem to have been used as dwellings. One of them has, in a recess, 
a poor and coarse sculpture of their gods in one statue, but the 
faces are so mutilated that no expression can be detected. And 
now, when we have come aboard again, the river has lost its monot- 
onous and gloomy aspect. The Libyan Desert, rising into loftier 
crests, crowds the river as below, but the Arabian Desert sinks and 
retreats, and leaves at its base a strip of land covered in succession 
with rich fields of water-melons, rice, Indian-corn, and orchards of 
date-palms, alternating with groves of flowering acacias. The isl- 
and of Elephantina, very small, divides the river, and shuts out 
both its upper branches from the view. Elephantina is the only 
green island which the Nile contains. The river on either side is 
hidden by projecting promontories, and we come to rest in a calm 
bay, which seems to be the fountain of the Nile. We sweep through 



556 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

this, and approach, on the eastern shore ; the small town of Assouan, 
built in the sands, and seeming to be a part of the desert itself. 

Assouan is at the foot of the portage around the cataract, and 
exhibits an activity as surprising as that at Cheyenne or Omaha. 
But there is no resemblance in the articles of commerce or the 
merchants, the trade or the traders, in any other country. Instead 
of warehouses, there are open bins, filled with dates and other 
tropical fruits, elephants' teeth, ostrich-feathers, palm-oil, lion-skins 
and tiger-skins, odoriferous and medicinal gums, the barks of trees 
for bales, tomahawks with ebony handles, lances, and poisoned 
arrows. Stores of rude pottery, and other cheap domestic utensils, 
from Alexandria and Cairo, are gathered here in other bins, to 
exchange for the southern products mentioned. The stores of 
either kind are without locks or bars, or watchmen, and, if protected 
at all from the sun, it is only by awnings stretched above them. 
All this merchandise is now awaiting the flood, which will allow 
small boats to pass over the rocky ledges of the cataract. The little 
harbor is filled with pretty vessels of light burden, among which 
the gay dahabeah everywhere flaunts its striped lateen-sails. On 
the brown mountain-top which overhangs the town are seen the 
fortifications of Arabian conquerors, earlier than Saladin. Though 
deserted and neglected for so many centuries, they seem capable of 
reconstruction with a little time and cost. But Assouan is rendered 
even more interesting by the diversity and strangeness of its popula- 
tion, than by its desert location, the verdant Elephantina, its quaint 
shipping, and its barbaric commerce. No sooner do we pass the 
Nubian border, than a different race from that of Lower Egypt 
presents itself. The inhabitants are black, neither tawny nor olive, 
but shiny black. A few Arabs are seen, but they are manifestly 
inferior, and servile to the Nubians ; the habitations are African, 
built of the palm, the bamboo, and the cane. The sand of the 
desert is the floor. Assouan is more African even than Aden. 
But here, as elsewhere, superior races hold prominence in commerce. 
Many of the merchants are Berbers, Abyssinians, and Libyans, 
while the laboring population is gathered from the savage tribes 
of interior Africa. These people are quite uncivilized, although 



ANCIENT GRANITE QUARRIES. 557 

commercial habits have made them peaceful and docile. They 
know as little of the world below Elephantina as they know of 
their own history. They wonder at the decline of the innocent and 
remunerative slave-trade, and still furtively pursue it against all 
interdictions and remonstrance. The price of an African hand- 
maid, in an Arabian family, is sixty dollars. Her children inherit 
equally with those of the lawful wife. 

We waited until sunset, and then, mounting camels, made our 
way through narrow, circuitous, unpaved, sandy lanes, crowded on 
either side by bazaars, coffee-houses, mosques, Coptic chapels, and 
mud-houses, with barricaded doors and latticed windows. Emerg- 
ing upon the desert, through the widest city gate ever seen, we 
came into a Mohammedan cemetery, five or six miles in circum- 
ference. It is the only cemetery we have ever seen from which 
every cheerful association of Nature is excluded. It has neither 
tree, shrub, plant, nor flower — neither sod nor soil — but only the dry 
sands of the desert, deposited by winds during thousands of years. 
The graves are (or might be) excavated with the human hand, with- 
out an implement. The excavation consists of removing so much 
sand as will leave the dead body on a level with the surface of the 
plain, and the sand is heaped upon it. Each grave is marked by a 
small, rough stone, usually without inscription. Some families 
have more ambitious monuments. They build a tomb above the 
sand, open at the sides. Interment is made by removing the sand 
beneath, and restoring it when the remains have been thrust in. 
Travellers say that the sirocco often uncovers the graves, rendering 
the air pestilential. We were spared such hideous experiences. 
Leaving the cemetery behind us, we rose some fifty or sixty feet 
above a ledge of the desert, and stood in the ancient granite quar- 
ries of Assouan. The plain is strewed with massive surface stones, 
which covered the quarry, and were rolled down the hill-side by 
some mechanism of more power than we can now conceive. At a 
height of five hundred feet above the river-bed, we found the 
smooth bed of the quarry of red granite from which the walls of 
the chambers of the Pyramids, and the columns of the Temples of 
Memphis, Thebes, and Dendera, were taken. From here, also, were 



558 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

quarried the sarcophagi and statues found in every part of Egypt, 
and all, or nearly all, of the obelisks which grace European capitals, 
as well as Heliopolis, Luxor, and Karnak. It is almost enough to 
make one fancy that the Egyptians were a Titanic race, when 
standing in this quarry, and contemplating that, three thousand, 
four thousand, five thousand years ago, they hewed, without the 
aid of steam or gunpowder, the solid mountain into shapes of gran- 
deur and ornament, with scarcely more time, labor, and cost, than 
are now expended in framing smaller forms of wood ! After con- 
tinuing for four thousand years a scene of active industry, the quar- 
ries became silent and solitary all at once. We understand there 
is no record of the erection of any obelisk in Egypt subsequent to 
the period of the Roman conquest. "We left our uncomfortable 
camels, and climbed np the sides of an obelisk, that had been exca- 
vated and nearly hewn into shape when the quarry was abandoned, 
and which has remained exactly in the same condition since. It 
measures seventy feet in length. Except at the apex, detached 
from the native rock on three sides, it is completely chiselled, and 
ready for polishing. The holes in the rock, on either side, can be 
seen, which received the wedges used in splitting off the external 
masses. We recalled here an inscription found on the great obelisk 
at Karnak. It recites that the monument was excavated at these 
quarries of Assouan, finished, conveyed to Karnak, and erected on 
its base there, all within the period of two hundred and ten days. 
What was the intended destination of this obelisk at Assouan? 
Why was it left unfinished ? Probably an invasion demanded that 
all subjects of the state should rush to its defence. It is always a 
sorry and a sad sight to contemplate any great work that has been 
abandoned incomplete. We wonder that the people of the United 
States can endure the sight of the unfinished monument of Wash- 
ington at the capital. But it is infinitely more sad to see a ruin, 
the construction of which was arrested by a blow that not only 
arrested that work, but arrested forever the stream of national life. 
It is with thoughts something like these that one looks over the 
marble blocks which were just being chiselled to repair the Forum 
of Pompeii, when the city itself was buried in a night, by the ashes 



PHILJ3. 559 

from Vesuvius. Historians try to show us how such prodigious 
labor was possible in ancient Egypt. They conjecture that the 
Pharaohs were despots, and that the quarries of Assouan were a 
prison. But these conjectures are unsatisfactory. Despotism and 
penal imprisonment have at some time prevailed in nearly every 
country on earth, but Egypt is the only country that has built 
pyramids and excavated obelisks. Devotional affection was the 
strongest in the earliest ages. These Egyptian monuments are the 
expressions of reverence to the gods. There will be no occasion 
hereafter for mankind to produce such gigantic utterances in stone. 
Christian faith and reverence can express a higher and purer devo- 
tion to the Creator by the use of types of lead and a printing-press. 
The savants who accompanied Bonaparte's army into Egypt re- 
port that there were then two temples on the island of Elephantina 
— one facing down the Nile, and called the " Temple of the North ; " 
one looking upward, and called the " Temple of the South." These, 
together with a nilometer, have been entirely swept away by inun- 
dations. There is still remaining there a statue of Osiris, with a 
date inscribed on it three thousand one hundred years ago. 

Philce v May %3d. — "We left our boat, with the other shipping at 
Assouan, at dawn this morning, and came, as usual, mounted on 
donkeys and camels, through the desert, to this place — the upper 
verge of the cataract. Our way was over rocky hills and through 
equally desolate ravines, whose only shade is the naked, overhang- 
ing mountain-sides ; nor is there on the whole way a single green 
leaf or blade of grass. An Austrian mission has erected a plain 
and comfortable edifice here, on the bank of the river, eight miles 
above Assouan, and facing Philse. This is the customary terminus 
of the voyage of all travellers on the Nile, as it is of ours. We 
find here a curious proof that the ancient Egyptians regarded a 
voyage up the Nile as gratifying an achievement as it is esteemed 
by us. The granite rocks here 'are covered with inscriptions, re- 
citing their success in making the great voyage. "Some were eon- 
tent with simply registering their names. William Freeman regis- 
tered his name in the same modest way. One ambitious tourist 



560 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



engraved himself, in intaglio, reverentially worshipping the gods 
of the cataract ! The same rocks, curiously enough, contain ac- 
counts inscribed by Egyptians, by generals, princes, and kings, of 
their successful expeditions against Ethiopia. The cataract of the 
Nile has its parallel in many countries — the volume of a vast river 
broken, as it descends to a lower level, by green islands and barren 
rocks. Such are Sault Ste. Marie, the falls of St. Anthony, the falls 
of the Mohawk, and many falls on the Upper Hudson and the Po- 




tomac. But the cataract of the Nile has a grandeur surpassing all 
these, in the stern setting of the beautiful picture in a framework 
of impassable deserts. Out of the midst of the dashing torrent 
rises the beautiful island of Philse. The whole island, a quarter of 
a mile long, and scarcely more than two hundred feet wide, is 
picturesquely crowned with graceful temples and colonnades. The 
sites of these structures were chosen by artistic eyes. In this re- 
spect, Philse stands alone. Every colonnade and every gate-way was 
evidently built with a view to excite the traveller's imagination as he 



FRENCH TABLET. 561 

might approach, the sacred island. The firm and lofty bases of the 
temple seem like a solid wall encircling its entire area. The base, 
at the same time, serves as a quay for the mooring of the boats of 
visitors, and affords them chambers to rest in before entering the 
temple. The architecture of Philse is not, like all the ruins we 
have seen, purely or chiefly Egyptian. The ancient Egyptians only 
began it. It was completed by the Greeks after Alexander, who 
were content to improve Egyptian models without destroying them 
or substituting their own. Hence there is a delicacy and grace of 
execution in the ruins of PhilaB that is not seen in other Egyptian 
temples. The ruins give us some interesting modern historical in- 
formation. Near the close of the fourth century, as every one 
reads, the Emperor Theodosius, of the Eastern Empire, issued an 
edict at Constantinople, by which he proscribed and abolished the 
ancient Egyptian religion. Among the inscriptions in the temples, 
recording the visits of travellers there, are those of priests of that 
religion who performed here their rites in honor of Isis and Osiris 
sixty years after the promulgation of the decree. There is a tablet 
in the propylseum of the Temple of the East, on which is carefully 
engraved : 

" L'an 6 de la republique, le 13 Messidor, une armee Francaise, 
commandee par Buonaparte, est descendue a, Alexandrie ; l'armee 
ayant mis vingt jours apres, les Mamelukes en fuite aux pyramides, 
Dessaix, commandant la premiere division les a poursuivi au-dela 
des cataractes, ou il est arrive le 13 Yentose, de l'an 7." ' 

How curious that almost the only monument which the French 
Republic of '93 has left is this one, which records a great foreign 
achievement of a hero who defended it only to subvert it ! How 
prone unsophisticated nature is to exaggerate the marvellous ! 
Mariette Bey quotes a French traveller of the age of Louis XIY. 
as saying that the thunders of the cataract of the Nile deafen the 



1 Translation. — " On the 13th Messidor of the year 6 of the republic " (July 3, 1*799), 
" the French army, commanded by Bonaparte, landed at Alexandria. At the Pyr- 
amids, twenty days later, the Mamelukes having been put to flight by the army, Dessaix 
commanding the first division, pursued them above the cataract, where he arrived on the 
13th Ventose of the year 7 " (March 5, 1800). 



562 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

inhabitants for miles around. Mr. Seward remembers to have seen 
on an old English map a picture of Niagara Falls, with a note under 
it saying, " These falls are a quarter of a mile high ! " Having 
made these profound critical reflections, we descend the Grand 
Quay and go on board a dahdbeah, to make our way through the 
foaming rapids and the roaring eddies and whirlpools to our Croco- 
dile, which awaits us at Assouan, and at this moment an incident 
occurs which is worth recording, if for no other reason than that of 
its instructions in economy. We see a native man and woman 
emerge from the magnificent classic colonnade at the water's edge 
of the island, plunge into the rushing river, and make their way 
directly across to the Libyan coast. They have taken off all their 
clothing and heaped it in solid parcels on their heads, while they 
walk securely through the wild and dangerous rapids. This is, in- 
deed, the customary form of ferriage on the Nile. It has often 
amused us to see a river-boat, Avhich has come up from Cairo 
freighted with natives, stop, and, without boat or plank, deliver its 
passengers in the middle of the river. The passenger puts his lug- 
gage on his head, and leaps into the river, saying, philosophically 
and cheerfully : " If it is my kismet " (fate), " I shall perish ; if not, 
I shall reach the bank." 

If we have turned our backs reluctantly upon the Mountains of 
the Moon and the sources of the Nile, we must console ourselves 
with the reflection that we have seen regions which neither Alex- 
ander, nor Julius Caesar, nor Genghis Khan, nor Tamerlane, nor 
apostolic prophet, nor Columbus, nor Napoleon, nor Magellan, nor 
Yasco de Gama, ever explored. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LAST DAYS IN EGYPT. 

The Vice-Consul's Harem. — Kenneh and its Pottery. — The Sugar of Egypt. — Memphis. — 
Its Ruins. — The Downfall of Idolaters. — Again at Cairo. — Conversation with a 
Paeha. — Alexandria. — Aspect of the City. — Interview with the Khedive. — Sir Henry 
Bulwer. — Pompey's Pillar. — The Khedive's Yacht. — Concluding Reflections on Egypt. 

Thebes, May Mth. — We fastened here at Luxor, this afternoon. 
Sultan Pacha, the governor, and the United States vice-consul, were 
on the wharf to welcome us back. While Mr. Seward entertained 
these former dignified personages on board, the vice-consul con- 
ducted the ladies to his little harem. His domestic establishment, 
coarse and plain, is in striking contrast with this loyal representa- 
tive's pretentious official residence, at which we were so sumptu- 
ously dined on our way up the river. On reaching the door, the 
ladies ascended, by a very narrow, steep, and not particularly clean 
flight of stairs, to the house-top ; where, it being after sunset, they 
sat during their visit, without protection. The furniture of the 
room consisted of a bed and two chairs. An African handmaid 
was in attendance. Presently the wife of the consul, a slender, 
middle-aged woman, came up the stairs, veiled, and neatly dressed 
in deep black, with heavy silver bracelets and bangles. She re- 
ceived our salutation timidly, remained standing, and presented 
her three pretty, olive-skinned children — one boy and two girls. 
The ladies turned to the consul and said, " But you told us you had 
but one child ? " He answered, " I have but one boy ; we do not 



564: EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

count girls." The mother entirely agreed with him, and expressed 
her mortification, in Arabic, that two of the children should be so 
perverse as to belong to the inferior sex ! This woman has no 
responsibility except the care of her children. The visit, being one 
of ceremony, ended with coffee, chibouques, and sherbets, brought 
by the handmaiden from the consul's house. We retire to rest by 
the light of the Southern Cross, the last time that soon, if perhaps 
ever, it shall spread its light for us, though we have many seas yet 
to navigate, and many lands yet to explore, before we reach our 
home. 

Beni-Hassan, May 28th. — We steamed down the river from 
Thebes on the morning of the 25th, having for the last sound there 
the sharp report of the vice-consul's musket firing a national salute ; 
and, for the last sight, the flags of the United States, Brazil, and 
Egypt, waving from a staff high above the columns, walls, and 
obelisks of Karnak and Luxor. We stopped for coal at Kenneh, a 
lively, commercial Arab town, and the seat of the manufacture of 
the porous earthen pottery used throughout Egypt for cooling and 
clarifying the Nile-water. Roads across the Arabian Desert ex- 
tend this trade by caravans to Persia, and the banks of the Euphra- 
tes and Tigris. European governments have consulates here, 
which are filled by wealthy Arab merchants. The German consul, 
of the same class, entertained us in a residence so stately that it 
would not ill become a foreigner, resident in Cairo. We coaled 
again at Siout, went ashore at Rodah, and visited the immense su- 
gar refinery there, the private property of the Khedive. Sugar is 
the principal staple of Upper Egypt, while Lower Egypt produces 
none. The viceroy is the principal producer and manufacturer 
for the whole country. The cane is brought to Rodah in boats 
from various plantations, which contain in the aggregate ninety 
thousand acres. The machinery is of British manufacture, and 
equal to the best in Cuba. When we compare the extensive culti- 
vation on the banks, and the activity of trade on the river, as we 
approach Cairo, with the sterility and desolation of the banks at 
the cataract, this return-voyage, down the Nile, seems to us like a 



ANCIENT MEMPHIS. 565 

return from a sojourn in the " valley of the shadow of death " to 
the land of the living. The deserts on either side, with their 
mountain-crests, recede gradually from the banks ; and the valley, 
largely covered with date-orchards and sugar-cane, wears a green- 
ness which shows that we have left the tropics behind us to come 
again into the temperate zone. Small as the range of manufacture 
and local trade is, the inhabitants are intelligent and active, in 
striking contrast to the people of the Upper Nile. Sultan Pacha, 
with his steamer, has kindly acted as convoy to the Crocodile, and, 
whenever we have stopped, we have shared the honors which a 
simple and subjugated people show him. At every landing, boats 
discharge their freights of delicious watermelons, as presents or for 
taxes in kind, on his deck, and the finest of them soon find their 
way to ours. Nothing could be more acceptable "in this dry, hot 
climate. 

Memphis, Tuesday, May SOth. — Our last day on the Nile ! The 
downward voyage has been made without other accident than an 
occasional running high and dry on sand-banks, from which we 
were hauled off sometimes by our noisy Arab crew, sometimes by 
our steady convoy. The Pyramids of Dashur, far distant from the 
bank, though in full view from the river, then those of Sakkara 
next seen, beckoned to us to stop and take a survey of ancient 
Memphis. Our approach to Cairo was made known to us by the 
grim towering points of Ghizeh. 

A citizen of Chicago would think it labor lost in visiting this 
renowned ancient capital. It is so soon done for. As we advance 
inward from the valley of the Nile toward the desert, we pass some 
irregular black knolls, which are covered with clumps of date- 
palms. On the surface of these hillocks we saw, here and there, 
not bowlders, but blocks of hewn granite, no one stone lying on 
another. Occasionally the knoll, having been partially cut away 
for agricultural purposes, reveals a heap of broken bricks. In a 
sunken ditch, now dry, but wmich is filled by the Nile when at 
flood, lies prostrate, with face downward, a monolith statue of Ka- 
meses II., usually identified as the great Sesostris. Its whole 



566 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

height was sixty feet. The stone is a flinty limestone. It was 
nine in the morning when we arrived off the accepted site. The 
bank is a plain six or seven miles wide, crossed by canals of irriga- 
tion in all directions, and large portions of it are subject to annual 
inundation. The current being very strong, we found neither 
wharf nor anchorage, nor even a place for mooring. We, there- 
fore, turned about and passed up the river to a convenient cove used 
for a ferry. Crossing the plain, we left behind us the river winding 
between fertile plains ; below us Beni-Hassan ; opposite, on the 
right bank, a Coptic convent, and an abandoned line of military 
signal-stations ; the view bounded on the north by Old Cairo and 
the citadel, here only just visible. Two or three miles before us, 
on the plain, a modern Egyptian town, with the Arabic name of 
Myt-Rahyneh, nestling among dry sand-hills ; in the distance the 
Pyramids of Sakkara, seeming to cluster against the horizon with 
those of Ghizeh. The efficiency of the Khedive's government was 
shown by the promptness with which, in compliance with a dis- 
patch which Betts Bey sent from Beni-Hassan, twenty or thirty 
men appeared, with chairs and donkeys, to meet us. We rested at 
Myt-Rahyneh long enough to reorganize our train, and partake of 
sherbet and coffee under some acacias, which protect the only well 
in the village, and then resumed our way across the level plain, 
over cultivated fields, and crossing the canals on bridges for a dis- 
tance of four miles, when we reached the squalid hamlet of Sak- 
kara. 

It was near sunset when we embarked, leaving behind us for- 
ever the city of Memphis — Memphis, founded by Menes, the home 
of the authors of civilization ; the builders of the Pyramids, the 
kings who knew, and the kings who knew not Joseph ! Memphis, 
whose sedgy bank was the cradle of Moses, whose council-chambers 
heard the warnings of the prophet of Israel, and the denunciations 
of the divine plagues ! Memphis, from whose walls issued the 
chariots and horsemen which were lost in the pursuit of the Israel- 
ites through the waters of the Red Sea ! As we reflect upon the 
monuments we have seen to-day of the senseless worship of bulls, 
birds, crocodiles, and hippopotami, the mockery alike of religion 



RETURN TO CAIRO. 567 

and of knowledge, we wonder less than ever that the first and 
chief instruction which Moses the deliverer conveyed to his people 
was, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The time had 
come when the world needed that command. Perhaps the expe- 
rience of the proneness of mankind to disregard it may be the ex- 
planation of the severity of the discipline by which it has pleased 
the great Lawgiver of the Universe to enforce that command. He 
has cut off the nations that have refused it : 

" Thus saith the Lokd God ; I will destroy the idols, and I will 
cause their images to cease out of Koph " (Memphis) ; " and there 
shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt : and I will put a 
fear in the land of Egypt." 

Cairo, May Z\st. — We came to the wharf by moonlight, at ten 
o'clock last night. Carriages were waiting to convey us through 
the streets of Cairo, of which every mosque was illuminated, and 
merry crowds of natives were assembled at the fountains and 
shrines. It was the birthday of Mohammed — the day on which 
the pilgrims returned from Mecca are publicly received by the 
Khedive, and honored with religious ceremonies at the mosques. 
We passed at the base of the citadel the public square, where, a 
few hours before, the sheik of the Great Mosque, mounted on a 
heavy charger, had ridden over a long pavement of prostrate devo- 
tees, without inflicting, as they allege, a fracture, a bruise, or even 
a pain. At eleven o'clock we were again at our residence in the 
Kasr-Nudzha after an excursion of nineteen days, during which no 
danger was experienced, no disappointment incurred, and no want, 
either of comfort or luxury, un supplied. 

Mr. Seward's first desire this morning was an audience of the 
Khedive, in which he might make his acknowledgments to his 
princely host for this rich experience. But they have politics in 
Egypt as elsewhere. The Khedive went yesterday morning to 
Alexandria. Speculation is rife as to the reason of his journey, 
and as to the probable length of his absence — some saying that he 
is summoned to Constantinople, where he may be poisoned, and 
the most hopeful agreeing that he will not return to Cairo for 



568 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

several weeks. He was attended by his harem and the Princess 
Valide, who, gossip says, always makes his coffee for him on his 
journeys, and gives it to him with her own hands, to guard against 
possible attempts at poisoning. He has kindly left instructions for 
receiving Mr. Seward at Alexandria. 

June 4th. — A very free conversation between a distinguished 
pacha and Mr. Seward at dinner to-day disclosed a discouraging po- 
litical situation in Egypt. The pacha thinks that foreign states 
ought to discuss directly with the Egyptian Government all ques- 
tions of mutual interest, instead of treating with the Turkish Gov- 
ment at Constantinople. Mr. Seward said : " The Egyptian Gov- 
ernment must go deeper into the matter of international law than 
this. At present, the relations of Egypt, as well as of the whole 
Turkish Empire, to the Christian nations are provisional, somewhat 
of the nature of those established by an armistice on the battle- 
field. The Mohammedan states have neglected or refused to ac- 
cept the laws of nations as matured by the Christian states. The 
European states consent to remain at peace with the Mohammedan 
states, but only on the condition that the latter shall exercise no 
jurisdiction or authority over the persons or property of subjects 
of Christian countries. Every foreigner, therefore, residing in 
Egypt, whether English, French, German, Greek, or American, in- 
vokes in his own behalf the intervention of his own government, 
and submits himself only to its judgments when complaint is 
made against him by the Egyptian Government. Foreigners pay no 
taxes, and render no military services ; and yet trade, art, and manu- 
factures, such as you have, seem almost exclusively in their hands. 
This condition is unsatisfactory to the Khedive and to the states- 
men of Egypt. I learn this, not only from your own conversation, 
but from the fact that the Khedive has organized a legislature, and 
has instituted negotiations with the "Western powers for the estab- 
lishment of a mixed foreign and native judiciary, to have charge 
of questions in which foreigners are concerned. But I do not 
learn that the Ottoman Porte, to which Egypt is a tributary, sym- 
pathizes at all with the Khedive in his very reasonable aspirations. 



THE DELTA. 569 

The reason probably is, that the Ottoman Porte finds its best se- 
curity against foreign dangers in its compliance with the will of the 
dominant European powers. On their part, these powers cannot 
maintain a policy of protection toward Turkey except by insisting 
upon the existing stipulations. It does not become me to speculate 
here on questions which affect the relations of Egypt to the Turk- 
ish Empire. I am here the guest of both, but I may be allowed to 
say that what I think Egypt most needs is the opening of the coun- 
try to Europeans and Christians for cultivation, and a compulsory 
system of education of the whole mass of children of both sexes, 
native and foreign, by which, in no very long time, Egypt will raise 
a class who will be capable of carrying on trade, banking, manufac- 
tories, internal improvements, and military instruction, as well as 
of exercising the other occupations which are now chiefly filled by 
foreigners. The system of education thus to be established ought 
to be built up as fast and as far as possible on the principles of the 
Western nations. Until this is done, I see little hope for the 
emancipation of Egypt from its double thraldom ; first, to the Otto- 
man Porte ; and, second, through the dependency of the Ottoman 
Porte, to the Christian nations of Europe. This prospect will 
seem to you distant, but rivalries between the European states are 
inevitable, and I think that you will find some one or more of them 
always willing to favor measures which tend to the advancement 
of civilization in Egypt, and her admission into the family of inde- 
pendent nations." 

Alexandria, June 5th. — The Khedive's consideration contin- 
ues. Leaving the pleasant Kasr-Nudzha, at eight o'clock in the 
morning, we crossed the Delta in a special train, attended, as on 
our entrance into Cairo, by -Betas Bey and the United States con- 
sul-general. "What need is there to say here that just below Heli- 
opolis, while .yet in the traditional land of Goshen, we crossed the 
Damietta branch of the Nile ; that the Delta spreads out here to the 
width of a hundred miles, so that, for the first time since our arrival 
in Egypt, we lose sight both of the Arabian Desert and of the des- 
ert of Libya ; that we crossed, lower down, the Rosetta branch of 
43 



570 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the Nile, and that, as we approached the Mediterranean, we had a 
view of the Mahmoud Canal, which carries the inland trade of 
Alexandria ; and that later we traversed the shore of the now shal- 
low Lake Moeris, thousands of years ago the bed of the Kile ? 
This vast and fertile plain, while it exhibits the usual assiduous 
industry of the fellahs, at the same time shows some approximation 
toward European customs and manners. 

The site of Alexandria is naturally dry, stern, and sterile, as 
forbidding as the deserts which form on either side of the Upper 
Nile. But with the growth of commerce, in the course of two 
thousand years, this forbidding African coast has assumed a cheer- 
ful aspect. Irrigation has produced here rich gardens, groves, and 
orchards. All the eminences, within the range of vision, are sur- 
mounted by windmills, and the approaches to the city in every 
direction are adorned with villas, in which Italian taste is pleas- 
antly combined with the Oriental. On our right, towers the tall, 
dark shaft of Pompey's pillar. 

The Khedive's military staff received Mr. Seward at the station, 
and attended him to the Hotel $ Angleterre, placed at his disposal 
by direction of the Government. On our way, Mr. Seward re- 
marked the great improvements which have taken place since he 
was here in 1859, and pointed out the catacombs of the ancient 
Egyptians in the high embankment, which have been exposed by 
the cutting of streets directly through and over them. Our hotel 
fronts the great public square, which on either side is lined with 
palatial residences in the European style. It seems as if we had 
already entered Europe, and left Egypt behind us. A throng of 
fashionably-dressed Europeans are promenading, and French and 
English equipages are frequent in the streets. The Italian opera 
demands our immediate attendance on the opposite square, and 
every thing shows ns that at last, after ten months' travel among 
the semi-barbarous nations of the East, we have at last reached a 
gay though exotic European city. 

June 6th. — A political day. Mr. Seward, this morning, had a 
parting audience of the Khedive in his palace, on the island of Pha- 



INTERVIEW WITH THE KHEDIVE. 571 

ros, facing the sea. His highness evidently regards Alexandria as 
a provincial residence, and gratifies the people with a greater dis- 
play of state pomp and ceremony than he customarily indulges in 
at Cairo. The palace-gates were guarded, and its courts graced 
with battalions of fine troops. The Khedive received Mr. Seward 
with warm congratulations on his return, and made many kind 
inquiries about his voyage up the Nile, which, at so late a season, 
he had regarded with grave apprehensions. He hoped that, while 
impressed by the wonderful antiquities of the country, Mr. Seward 
would carry away from it a conviction that it is advancing in the 
path of Western civilization as fast as under the circumstances 
could be expected. He desired to know whether any thing remained 
that he could do to render Mr. Seward's stay at Alexandria agree- 
able. Mr. Seward told him there was nothing, but that he would' 
ask one parting favor, in addition to all the kindnesses he had re- 
ceived. The Khedive promised to grant it before it was asked. 
Mr. Seward said, " Betts Bey has been indefatigable in the care and 
attention which he has bestowed upon us, but his service to your 
highness is so diligent and constant that he never finds an oppor- 
tunity for recreation. I learn from him that he has never seen Pal- 
estine, whither I am going. He is a Christian, as I am, and a 
pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, once in his life, would make him 
no more incapable of official service in a Mohammedan court. He 
has not suggested a desire to accompany me, nor have I apprised 
him of my intention to make this request, but I shall esteem it a 
last and great favor, if you will direct that he may accompany me 
to Jerusalem." 

" Granted at once," said the Khedive. " Betts Bey deserves it, 
and pilgrimage to holy places cannot but make us all better men, 
whatever may be our religious belief." 

Engaging Mr. Seward to advise him of his health and safety in 
the further progress of his journey, and expressing an earnest de- 
sire to visit him some time in the United States, the Khedive shook 
hands with Mr. Seward, and the latter took his leave. Arms were 
presented as he retired and joined his party at the palace-gates. 
Thence Mr. Seward proceeded to pay a visit to Lord Dalling, late 



572 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



Sir Henry Bulwer, who is now on a visit to Egypt, and, like Mr. 
Seward, a guest of the Khedive. He has his residence in a villa 
on the canal, outside of the city-gates. This interview was a very 
pleasant one. Sir Henry Bulwer was the British minister at 
"Washington during the administration of President Taylor, when 
Mr. Seward was first entering upon his senatorial term. A cordial 
friendship then grew up between them, in consequence of their 
mutual efforts to secure the so-called " Clayton-Bulwer Treaty," 
which, with a view to transcontinental communication across the 
Isthmus, stipulated the independence of the Central- American re- 
publics. The two statesmen compared notes very fully on the 
attitudes of their respective Governments toward each other dur- 




pompey's pillaf.. 



POMPEY'S PILLAE. 573 

ing the late civil war in the United States, and the late British 
ambassador expressed his satisfaction at the result of the conflict, 
as Mr. Seward did his hope for the firm establishment of the cor- 
dial friendship between the two nations. Lord Dalling seems so 
confirmed an invalid, that Mr. Seward asked, after leaving his 
lordship, which of the two seemed most shattered with age and 
infirmity. 

Pompey's pillar, though at a distance it seems perfect, is gradu- 
ally succumbing to the ravages of time. Why does not the British 
Government remove the fallen "Cleopatra's Needle," which Me- 
hemet Ali presented to it % London would be none the worse for 
such an embellishment. If they shrink from the task of removing 
it, why not restore the great ruler's gift to his successor ? We are 
sure that Ismail Pacha would make no delay in raising it on its 
ancient pedestal in Alexandria, or even restoring it to its earlier 
place at Heliopolis. Egyptian obelisks, thirty-three hundred years 
old, are certainly too valuable, in modern times, to be buried in 
the sand. They tell an amusing tale concerning this obelisk here. 
An ambitious Alexandrian bought the land on which it lies, to 
build upon. He cannot build without removing the obelisk. He 
has three difficulties about removing it : first, it belongs to the 
British Government ; second, it would cost more than the land is 
worth to remove it ; third, he has no right to place it anywhere 
else. They say he walks up to look at it every Sunday, and study 
the problem, which still remains unsolved. 

June 7th. — The American military officers of the Khedive's ser- 
vice, in the magnificent gold-laced uniform of the Egyptian army, 
called on Mr. Seward en masse, and it was a great satisfaction to 
him to find one place, in going round the world, where the Ameri- 
can agent, political or religious, expresses his entire content with 
the government of the country he resides in. 

We have looked up and down the Mahmoud Canal, as well as 
through the harbor of Alexandria, without finding the famous barge 
of Cleopatra. The most ancient vessel we have found is the 
Ariadne, Captain Marryat's vessel, on which he wrote " Jacob 



574 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

Faithful," and which is lying in the harbor, dismantled, and used 
as a store-ship. Another historical naval relic in Alexandria Bay 
is the ship Kesolution, in which Captain Cook made his last voyage. 
This hulk, of four hundred tons, now black and brown, is used as a 
coaling-ship by the Peninsular and Oriental steamers. 

We have just returned from a visit to the Khedive's yacht — a 
sea-palace, moving with steam-engines and side-wheels ; its bur- 
den, three thousand tons ; its speed, seventeen miles an hour ; its 
armament, eight guns ; its naval crew, four hundred and fifty men ; 
its staircases, of silver ; its floors, covered with Persian and Turkish 
carpets ; its windows and beds, draped with satin brocade ; its im- 
mense saloons, hung with mirrors, pictures, and chandeliers, the 
finest that Paris could produce, and furnished with modern, lavish, 
dazzling splendor. What would not Plutarch have said to this ? 
With this ship Cleopatra could not only have brought Mark Antony 
safely away from Actium, but she could have won the battle for 
him, which would have been better, and could have entertained 
him more sumptuously even than in her famous barge. 

Alexandria, founded by the Great Conqueror, whose name it 
bears, after his death supplanting Memphis under the sway of the 
Ptolemies, after its conquest by Julius Caesar emulating Rome 
itself, and later becoming the school of Christianity in the East, 
then eclipsed by Constantinople, and still later subjugated by the 
Mussulman caliphs, broken down by their successors and restored 
by Mehemet Ali, still remains a great commercial city. It is the 
entrepot of European commerce for Egypt and India. We are now 
to see it undergo a still further trial. Will it be superseded by 
Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal ? 

Port Said, June 9th. — Leaving Alexandria yesterday at four 
o'clock, we resumed our voyage, always in sight of the Egyptian 
coast. The bright light of Pharos reminded us that it was here 
that the humane institution of this form of beacon for navigators 
had its origin, in a structure on the same spot, deemed so remark- 
able for its majesty and beauty by the ancients, as to be accepted 
by them as one of the "seven wonders of the world." 



PORT SAID. 575 

A customary expression of regret that the Alexandrian Library- 
was lost to the world, led Mr. Seward to say that, perhaps, it is not 
a total loss after all. Nine-tenths of all the books which are written 
in the world are, more or less, transcripts of others that have been 
written before. A great library is generally only a store-house of 
material for new books. It would be strange, indeed, if, one way 
or another, any of the ideas which were recorded in the million 
volumes of the Alexandrian Library are not now extant in other 
books. So a library lost is like the light of Pharos which was lost 
— but not so utterly lost that it cannot be replaced. 

In the course of the night we passed Rosetta, after Alexandria, 
the chief port of entry of the Delta. A few hours later, rounding 
easily and quietly into the smooth but capacious artificial harbor of 
Port Said, we threw over an anchor, an experience which seemed 
new to us, after our three weeks of tying to stakes on the banks of 
the Nile. 

The superintendent ol the Suez Canal, desirous that Mr. Seward 
should examine the work at this terminus, as he had at the other, 
kindly put a small steamer at our service, and, embarking on this 
vessel with Mr. Page, United States consul, we made an excursion 
of ten miles through this part of the canal, which flows in a deep 
channel, between high' embankments faced with artificial stone, 
and is built through the middle of the shallow salt-lake Menzaleh. 
It seemed to us that human patience and energy have never been 
so severely tasked as in raising these firm and solid embankments 
upon the oozy bed which had been saturated and soaked with the 
slimy flood of the Nile, from a period, perhaps, earlier than the 
beginning of the human race. . 

Port Said seems quite American. The site of the little town, 
so recently recovered from the sea, is already divided and sub- 
divided into streets and squares, and the universal topic of con- 
versation is the eligibility of and price of city-lots. There is as 
yet little indication of internal trade, but the repairing of shipping, 
transshipment of passengers, and coaling of vessels, afford profitable 
occupation to a population of ten thousand, among whom are found 
some Germans, some Italians, but chiefly immigrants from the is- 



576 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

lands of the Levant. We dined with the consul, and walked through 
the sandy streets, under a burning sun. 

Whence came the Egyptian people? How was it that they 
erected and maintained so great and flourishing a state, construct- 
ing vaster and more enduring monuments than any other portion 
of the human race, and why after these marvellous achievements 
did they entirely cease to have a national existence ? These are 
as great mysteries to the dwellers in Egypt now as they are to us. 
We have already mentioned that an Arab told us that the Pyramids 
and the Sphinx were the creation of genii in a single night. A 
Copt, attending us at Dendera, asked us, as he surveyed the ruins, 
" Who were the people who raised these wonderful temples and 
excavated these tombs? Whence did they come, and whither 
have they gone ? " We are not inclined to accept the idea that 
the old Egyptians were like the Copts. The Copts of the pres- 
ent day are men of dark skin, while all the statuary and paint- 
ings which so much excite our interest invariably represent and 
describe the Egyptians as " red men." Certainly they were neither 
negroes, nor Hindoos, nor Europeans — neither blacks nor whites, 
like the blacks and whites of to-day. Doubtless, in the patriarchal 
period, some tribes from the west of Asia, Arabia, perhaps Meso- 
potamia and Syria, made their way into the valley of the Nile, and 
instituted society there some centuries before the visit of Joseph 
and his brethren. Isolated there, and yet exposed to invasion from 
Libya and Ethiopia, as well as from Arabia, these tribes would 
naturally consolidate themselves into a nation. Thus consolidated, 
possessing a soil of unequalled fertility, they perfected and main- 
tained Egypt as the great state of its time, for a period of several 
thousand years. During this period they first conquered and then 
mingled their blood with the African tribes of Ethiopia, now Nubia 
and Libya. From this mixture probably descended the Copts, an 
inferior race during the glory of Egypt, but who nevertheless 
adhered longer to its religion and arts than any other part of the 
population. 

It is much easier to see how the Egyptian nation perished than 
how it originated. They perfected their work ; they produced a 



FOSSIL EGYPT. 577 

religion which in all ao-es seems to have been the first need of man- 
kind, a state which was the second, science the third, and had com- 
merce, literature, and arts, adequate to their own wants, if they 
had remained isolated. But, by the time this was done, Assyria, 
Persia, Syria, including Phcenicia, and especially Greece, had 
pushed inquiry further, and had reached much higher results. 
They established religions, states, commerce, and arts, which, al- 
though in modern times they have all been found imperfect, were 
nevertheless more solid and effective than those of the Egyptians. 
The Egyptian system came into conflict successively with those new 
and better ones. The work of destruction which the Assyrians 
and Persians began was not stayed by their Greek and Roman suc- 
cessors, and the Mohammedan invaders in the seventh and eighth 
centuries, with their policy of conquest and propagandism by the 
sword, completed the ruin of Egypt by a work of unsparing deso- 
lation. 

If there is any one fact in natural science that seems to us more 
mysterious than another, it is that on some mountain-top, or in some 
remote valley far away from and far above the everlasting ocean, 
we pick up a slate-stone in our path, and, breaking it, we find 
within the distinct fossil imprint of a shell-fish of a species un- 
known, or perhaps extinct. It is just so with ancient Egypt ; it 
had a civilization which seems to have had no prototype, and can 
have no reproduction. 



CHAPTER IX. 



JERUSALEM. 



A Levantine Coasting-Steamer. — The Green Fields of Sharon. — Jaffa. — Ramleh. — Lydda. 
— Rural Population. — First View of Jerusalem. — Mr. Seward's Reception. — The 
Sultan's Firman. — Church of the Holy Sepulchre. — Religious Intolerance. — Mount 
Calvary. — The Via Dolorosa. — The Mosque of Omar. — The Mosque El-Aksa. 

Jaffa, June Sth. — The eleventh month of our voyage of circum- 
navigation opens uj3on us in Palestine. A Levantine coasting- 
steamer presents us with another peculiar phase of travel. Except 
our party, there are neither Americans, nor English, nor Europeans. 
All are natives of the towns of Syria, Palestine, the Greek islands, 
and Asia Minor. They are, in fact, a reproduction of the hetero- 
geneous multitude whom Peter addressed at Jerusalem on the day 
of Pentecost, as far as the classifications of modern geography will 
allow : 

" Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Meso- 
potamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phry- 
gia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cy- 
rene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Ara- 
bians." 

After being dazzled almost to blindness by the reflection of a 
tropical sunlight from the glaring sand of the desert, it is gratefully 
refreshing to look out upon the green fields of Sharon. Mr. Sew- 
ard, who sojourned here a week under quarantine in 1859, indicated 
from the deck the convent made forever historical by Bonaparte's 



JAFFA AND EAMLEH. 579 

alleged poisoning of his sick and disabled soldiers to prevent their 
falling into the hands of the Turks. He pointed out also the house 
and grounds which are shown to travellers as the house of Simon 
the tanner, and a rock into which has been inserted a large ring, 
asserted to have been used for two very different purposes : the 
one for chaining Andromeda, and the other for holding Noah's 
Ark in its place until he was ready to embark on his extraordinary 
cruise. 

Jaffa, though not after the European taste, is, nevertheless, a 
handsome town, covering a rocky cliff, and overhanging the sea. 
"We cast anchor half a mile from shore, for there is no harbor, and 
our eyes were immediately greeted with a sight of the " stars and 
stripes " floating over a beautiful green suburb, two miles outside 
the walls of Jaffa, and our ears with the intelligence that it was the 
" American colony." A boat came promptly off the shore and put 
on deck Mr. Benjamin Finkelstein, an attache of the consulate at 
Jerusalem, who delivered to Mr. Seward a congratulatory letter 
from Mr. Beardsley, the consul there. Mr. Finkelstein was accom- 
panied by his own cavass, and also by an aide of the Turkish gov- 
ernor of Jaffa. Although the breakers were running high, we 
were transferred without danger or inconvenience on board a na- 
tive surf-boat, and with much skill buoyantly carried over a rolling 
sea near the shelving beach of the American colony. Here the 
boatmen carried us severally on their shoulders, and our feet were 
safely planted on the Syrian shore. Detachments of Turkish cav- 
alry and infantry received Mr. Seward, as a guest of the Turkish 
Government, with martial music and military honors. Forming 
an escort, they conducted us, through orange-orchards hedged with 
cactus, to the centre of the so-called American settlement. 

Ramleh, June 9th. — Our progress, in ascending to Jerusalem, 
was in manner very like to that in which we ascended from Peking 
to the Great Wall of China. It was conducted by Betts Bey, of the 
civil service of the Khedive of Egypt, assisted by Mr. Finkelstein, 
and their authority was supported by the cavass of the United 
States consulate at Jerusalem, dressed in the most elaborate and 



580 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

extravagant Turkish uniform, armed with a silver staff, like that of 
a drum-major, three cimeters, and pistols innumerable, of various 
sizes, in belt and saddle-bow. Each beast was attended by a driver 
and a leader. The governor, with a large mounted escort, which 
he Called a " guard of honor," attended us through the streets, out 
of the gates, and through the orange-groves of the suburbs to the 
wells of Yasur, on the open plain of Sharon. At this place, the 
governor and his troops took their leave, a smaller mounted guard 
taking its place, and we proceeded to Ramleh. 

Toward the end of the ride, our guides pointed out on our left 
Lydda, which, although the Greeks tried to christen it Diospolis, 
has retained its name and identity through all revolutionary changes, 
from the time when " Peter came down also to the saints which 
dwelt in Lydda, forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa," and 
" found a certain man named JEneas, which had kept his bed eight 
years, and was sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, ^Eneas, 
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise and make thy bed. And 
he arose immediately." 

Arriving at Ramleh at eight o'clock, or just at dark, Mr. Seward 
was received by the governor of that town, with a guard of honor, 
and, having designated a Latin convent as the lodging he preferred, 
was graciously introduced by the governor to the Franciscan 
superior of the house. "We were very weary. One of the brothers 
with much alacrity showed us to clean, comfortable rooms, and 
spread a generous supper. The superior, a handsome, educated 
Spaniard, manifestly uninformed of the political occurrences of the 
day, conversed with us at table, and expressed a hope that the 
luxuries which were prepared for us were satisfactory, but declined 
to participate, because they are forbidden to him. Such monasteries 
as this are found dispersed throughout the Holy Land. They were 
founded at an early elate by Christian charities in Europe, to 
afford shelter and comfort to the pilgrims of the "West. Being 
endowed with lands, and conducted with great frugality, the com- 
munities are now self-sustaining. There being no good public 
inns in the country, these monasteries entertain travellers in a 
simple and comfortable manner, and receive, when the traveller 



JERUSALEM. 581 

leaves, such gratuity as he pleases to give, although they make no 
demand. Travellers generally pay very cheerfully to the superior, 
for the use of the convent, a sum not less than similar entertain- 
ment would cost at a hotel. 

Jerusalem, June 10th. — We rose with the dawn this morning, 
and, having received coffee and a blessing from our kind entertain- 
ers at the monastery, we walked, with the aid of guides, through 
the few quiet streets of Ramleh. It seems that it is an achieve- 
ment of more than five thousand years for the human race to 
attain a state of society in which those who cultivate the land can 
dwell in safety and comfort, in rural localities. It is really only in 
England and in the United States that this stage of society has 
been reached, and much less perfectly in England than in the 
United States. In whatever country we have been, we have seen 
solitude in the rural districts, the farm-house unknown, the proprie- 
tor residing for security in some neighboring hamlet, village, or 
city, and the laborers clustering around him there. Mr. Seward 
says he found the case the same in Mexico, with six millions of In- 
dians in that country, cultivating the richest soil and enjoying the 
most benign skies in the world, but dwelling in mean, shabby 
towns. And, even among the Indian tribes of the Northwest, 
families who live by the chase and by the fisheries shrink from 
living alone. It is strikingly so in Palestine. It seems to have 
known no peace and no rest, at least since the time of Solomon. 

No view is more unique than that of Jerusalem as you approach 
it from the west. You look not so much at it as into it and over 
it. Though situated on a mountain-top, it is surrounded by loftier 
mountains : on your right, the mountains of Judea, on which you 
stand ; on your left, the Mount of Olives ; and, far beyond, the 
mountain-desert, at the foot of which the Jordan makes its hurried 
way to the Dead Sea. Our first surprise was that so famous a city 
should be so small. But this diminutiveness is itself a charm. You 
see in its entire circuit the lofty wall, with its beautiful parapets. 
Within the wall, clustering, but not crowded, you see, without 
shade or variation, the white roofs, balustrades, domes, and minarets 



582 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

of lofty palaces, and majestic churches and mosques. Though not 
especially conversant with the modern history and geography of 
the city, we had no difficulty in distinguishing the recently-renewed 
and magnificent dome which protects the Holy Sepulchre. We 
also recognized, by its situation and its gorgeous though faded 
dome, the Mosque of Omar, which now crowns Mount Moriah, 
and stands upon the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. If 
one knew no more of the Gospel than what he recalls of childhood's 
lessons, he could not mistake either the Plain of Bethlehem or the 
Mount of Olives. Nor would he mistake the significance of that 
solitary clump of olive and cypress trees, which, at the foot of the 
Mount of Olives, overhangs a long, low ravine which divides Mount 
Zion from the Mount of Olives. That ravine is the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat, and that cloister of solemn shade is Gethsemane. For- 
getting for the moment the devastations of the Turks, the Cru- 
saders, the Saracens, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the 
Babylonians, and the Egyptians, you accept this little Turkish town 
as the city which was built and adorned by Solomon, and as a perfect 
embodiment of the devotional idea of our faith, and do not wonder 
that, completed so long ago, it has been left to stand unchanged, 
unshaken, and alone, for the admiration and reverence of ages. 
Indulging in this reverie, we were roused, as we descended the 
now gentle and easy road toward the city, by the piercing strains 
of the shrill, exciting, Turkish martial music, which announced 
that military honors of no common significance awaited Mr. Sew- 
ard's coming. On the last of the mountain-plains was extended a 
marquee, over which floated the blood-red banner of the Crescent. 
The avenue leading to it was guarded by a battalion of infantry 
and a cavalry squadron. Mr. Seward alighted here, and, the droop- 
ing animals being dismissed, he was conducted up the avenue under 
a salute of the troops and the stirring music of the band to the 
marquee, where the Pacha of Jerusalem, attended by the muni- 
cipal and othei* public officers, received him as a distinguished 
stranger and a guest of the Turkish Empire. Here again was an 
entertainment just as profuse as if we had not partaken of refresh- 
ments on the other side of the mountain an hour before. Never- 



MOUNT ZION. 583 

theless, Mocha coffee, as prepared by Arab hands, is always ac- 
ceptable. And now occurred the first secession which our party 
has undergone in its long and interesting journey. The ladies 
could endure no more of receptions or of fatigue. Taking Betts 
Bey for their guide, they set out on foot to make their way into the 
city in advance of the procession, which they saw was inevitable. 

Jerusalem has seen many striking pageants, but certainly, in 
modern times, none so singular as this reception of a private Ameri- 
can citizen with the military pomp and imperial parade accorded 
before only to conquerors and kings. As we descended the hill 
we passed before the Roman church, monastery, school, and con- 
sulate, and then, from the noble bridge which spans the ravine, 
looked up at the fine colonnade of the Jewish Asylum lately built 
by the Rothschilds, and at last stood on the sacred Mountain of 
Zion. The Jaffa Gate is not the widest in the world, nor is Chris- 
tian Street the broadest and best-paved avenue, although it leads 
directly over Mount Zion. Happily, in view of this ceremony, the 
Government had caused the street to be cleared of its customary 
groups of camels, horses, and donkeys. In a word, the Jerusalem 
which was so beautiful seen in the softening light of the setting 
sun from the summit of the mountains of Judea, shrunk to a vulgar 
Turkish town the moment we entered it. "With the best speed the 
ladies could make, the strange and wild procession overtook them, 
obliging them to take shelter in such door-ways or booths as 
opened to them. The people of Jerusalem, more accustomed to 
seeing sad pilgrim bands and caravans from the desert than official 
pageants, were in the narrow street on this occasion, a heteroge- 
neous mass — Turks and Christians, Scribes and Pharisees, men, 
women, and children, monks and Sisters of Charity, publicans and 
sinners. 

Somehow we shall never be able to recall how we made our way 
through this motley crowd to a gate by the way-side, on which a 
modest sign-board advertised " Mediterranean Hotel." Our party, 
reunited, was conducted up two flights of narrow, steep stairs to 
the house-top, where we sat down, having in full view, on our left, 
the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ; on our right the 



584 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



Mosque of Omar ; and, at our feet, the crystal pool of Hezekiah, 
which is supplied from the " Wells of Solomon." Here the pacha 
and his suite, the consul and cavass, and " all others in authority," 
after renewed assurances of kindness and hospitality, took their 
leave, and we repaired to adjoining chambers, which, though neither 
spacious nor pretentious, were spotlessly clean, and in every way 
comfortable. 

To explain this brilliant reception by the authorities of Jerusa- 
lem, we may as well insert here the firman issued by the Turkish 
Government, announcing Mr. Seward as the national guest, and 
instructing all public officers to extend to him their courtesy and 
protection. The document is beautifully engrossed in Turkish 




characters, on a great sheet of parchment, surmounted by the Sal- 
tan's toogra or monogram. Mr. Brown, our charge d'affaires at 
Constantinople, made a translation of it for us as follows : 

" His Imperial Majesty, Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz Khan, son of Sul- 
tan Mahmoud Khan, may his victories be perpetuated ! 

" To my noble vizier — my glorious councillor, who administers 
the affairs of the people confided to his care, with great justice and 
equity — who strengthens and consolidates the edifice of the empire 
and public weal, with much zeal and ability — who is one of the 
faithful ministers of my Government, and who by his convictions 
has merited the favor of the Most High, possessor of all things : 
the halee or governor-general of my province of Soria (Syria) the 



CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 585 

possessor of my noble decoration of the majidieh of the first class, 
Rechid Pacha, may his glory be increased ! be it known : 

" That the bearer of the present royal and sovereign document 
is the Honorable William H. Seward, formerly the chief minister 
of the Government of the Republic of the United States of North 
America, who, with his companions, is visiting, for the purposes of 
travel, my province of Soria — and that it is my sovereign will that 
you, who are the balee of the same, consider him as my honored 
and distinguished guest. 

" That you treat him with every demonstration of honor and 
respect, and see that, wherever he may be pleased to go, he be 
shown hospitality. It is my royal pleasure that he be everywhere 
known as the guest of my Government, and treated accordingly. 
Let all measures be taken for his comfort and protection, and per- 
mit nothing to occur contrary to the present commands. 

" This know, and hasten to carry my sovereign will into exe- 
cution. 

" Written, the 15th day of the Moon of Rejeb the Unique, of 
the year of the Hedjera, 1287" (20th September, 1870). 

Sunday, June 11th. — Worship at the Church of the Holy Sep- 
ulchre — the only Sunday that we are to enjoy in Jerusalem — could 
not be neglected. But the hours of worship in the East are early. 
At six o'clock, with such strength as our night's rest had given us, 
we repaired there by rough, steep, and winding streets. A small, 
open, paved square lies in front of the church, into which we de- 
scended by a flight of worn stone steps. The area was thronged 
with a varied crowd from many countries. There were Syrians, 
Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Abyssinians, and Turks, as well as Eng- 
lish, French, Germans, Russians, Americans, and Italians — men of 
all nationalities, indeed, except Jews. Christians from Bethlehem 
and Hebron were busy in selling small, cheap relics and amulets 
among the mass, many of whom seemed very poor, and no small 
portion mendicants. How unreasoning is religious intolerance ! 
The Christian nations of Europe have succeeded in exacting and 
obtaining from the Turkish Government at Constantinople the full 



586 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



exercise of religious worship of every form in the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre. All nations are invited to it, save only the Jews, 
whom Turks and Christians unite in excluding from even its vesti- 
bule. Mr. Seward could not believe this until he found that one of 
the bearers of his chair had to be replaced because he was a Jew. 

The Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Coptic sects celebrate public 
worship in the church at different hours of the day. It will not 
seem strange that we passed the great mass, to go directly to the 
Holy Sepulchre. There is no doubt that the " new tomb " of Jo- 
seph of Arimathea, in which the Saviour reposed for three days 
after his crucifixion, is somewhere in this mountain. It is unrea- 




DOME OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLT SEPULCHRE. 



sonable to suppose, in view of the circumstances which attended 
the early Church, that it can now be identified. The pious Chris- 
tians of the fourth century, however, thought they found it here, 



"CHAPEL OF THE ANGEL." 587 

and Christians of every age till this have accepted it. Why should 
we not be content to do so, since there is no reason to suppose 
that any other place more authentic can now be found % We, 
therefore, shut out from our minds all distrust. The Holy Sepul- 
chre is under the centre of the great dome, or, to speak more ac- 
curately, the great dome of the church has been erected directly 
over the sepulchre indicated to the Empress Helena. The Holy 
Sepulchre is a white-marble sarcophagus. It is not, of course, pre- 
tended or supposed that the holy grave was found in this shape, 
but, with the decency which religious worship always requires, the 
marble case was built over the rock-hewn tomb. A small orna- 
mental structure of marble, with pillars and pilasters, and sur- 
mounted by a crown-shaped dome and cross, stands over the sep- 
ulchre, and constitutes a kind of chapel or temple. This diminutive 
structure is divided into two compartments. The outer chamber is 
called the " Chapel of the Angel," it being the pleasure of the devo- 
tees to believe that on the spot enclosed within it, and at the head 
of the grave, the angel stood when he said to Mary Magdalene and 
the other Mary, "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, 
which was crucified. He is not here : for he is risen, as he said. 
Come, see the place where the Lord lay." 

In the centre of this tiny chapel, raised on a pedestal, is a stone, 
which is claimed to be a fragment of the identical one upon which 
the angel sat. The chapel is capable of receiving only one or two 
visitors at any one time. At the eastern side is a small door, made 
low, so as to require the visitor to stoop as he enters. This harmo- 
nizes with St. John's account : " And as she wept, she stooped 
down, and looked into the sepulchre." Unhappily, however, for 
the indulgence of self-delusion, the churches have suspended, from 
the low ceiling in this narrow chamber, forty-three lamps of gold 
and silver, which are kept always burning by day and by night. 
Their dazzling glare, together with the strong perfume of spices 
and frankincense and attar of roses, is so incongruous with the 
natural condition of the sepulchre, that they bewilder instead of 
aiding the pilgrim in his pious desire to realize the " place where 
the Lord lay." As we reached the door, two poor Russian women 



588 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

came out, and this made way for us. We stooped and entered. 
The marble slab, which covers the Holy Sepulchre, was bedewed 
with tears — probably it is always so, although it is continually puri- 
fied with rose-water. A placid-faced monk stood near to perform 
this grateful office, and to offer flowers and other sacred mementos 
to the pilgrims. Notwithstanding the many provocations to doubt, 
it may well be believed that no one ever stands over that broken 
and worn marble slab unmoved. We , gave place, in our turn, to 
devout and meek Armenians. 

We could now study what remains of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre with free and inquiring minds. We entered the choir 
of the church when the Greek bishop and priests were concluding a 
solemn mass. We need hardly say that services differing so en- 
tirely from our form of worship seemed cold, formal, and theatrical. 
When the services ended, the bishop and his numerous assistant 
priests withdrew in solemn procession, leaving the congregation to 
retire at pleasure. We need not perhaps raise a question here on 
this subject. Mysterious dogmas and ecclesiastical forms were 
effective, perhaps they were necessary, for the conversion of the 
pagan nations. And they are not useless in supporting and 
keeping alive docile and patient faith. But their day has culmi- 
nated ; henceforth, more spiritual teaching will be employed, and 
we shall be called on to try whether the requisite standard of faith 
can be maintained under a system of free, unregulated, and unbri- 
dled religious inquiry for religious truth. It suits us better as trav- 
ellers to study past ideas, as they are embodied in architecture and 
in art. This Greek choir is spacious, lofty, and elaborately adorned 
Avith painting, statuary, and gilding. Our guides now proposed to 
show us, not only the Mount of Calvary, but the very place of the 
crucifixion, which is also under the dome of the Holy Sepulchre. 
To say sooth, our imaginations required a more ample space for the 
different parts of the most stupendous and awful drama ever 
enacted. It is not strange, therefore, that our faith in traditions 
grew weaker as we climbed the steep flight of eighteen stone steps 
to reach the summit of Calvary, under this dome, and at less than 
a stone's throw from the Holy Sepulchre. 



CALVARY. 5S9 

Calvary, if this is that mountain of terror and sadness, is a light 
and cheerful, well-paved chapel, twenty feet square, raised fifteen 
feet above the church floor. Here an attending priest lifts a cor- 
ner of the marble pavement, and discloses three sockets, drilled in 
the rock, at a distance of six feet from each other ; and all who can 
may believe what he says, that the central one received the foot of 
the Saviour's cross, and the other two the crosses of the malefac- 
tors who were crucified with him. Over this slab is erected an 
altar garnishee! with a profusion of jewelled ornaments and tapestry. 
All skepticism is expected to be put to flight when, underneath the 
altar, the marble veneering is removed and a naked rock is shown, 
with a large, irregular fissure in its face, which, we are told, was 
effected at that fearful moment when " the veil of the temple was 
rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, 
and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies 
of the saints which slept arose." 

The trial of faith steadily increases as we continue the appointed 
exploration. It has a locality, not merely for each grand part of 
the mighty transaction which it commemorates, but even for every 
incident connected with it, though too minute for memory or his- 
tory. A tablet at the foot of the Chapel of Calvary records that 
here " the mother of Jesus stood," a witness of his agony. An- 
other advises you of the spot where the body lay when taken down 
from the cross. Another, where it was washed and swathed for 
interment. Another, a place where the three Marys gathered for 
mutual condolence. After completing this survey, we descended 
to the dark cavern underneath the pavement of the church, and at 
the base of Calvary, in which St. Helena, in the fifth century, dis- 
covered the three crosses, still in a state of preservation. 

We returned to our hotel through several streets, which, from 
their continuity, have acquired the name of the " Via Dolorosa," 
being the path the Saviour trod on the way from the palace of 
Pilate to the place of crucifixion. Tradition has been no less busy 
here. At the foot of this staircase, the Saviour, sinking under the 
weight of his cross, impressed his Divine face upon the handkerchief 
of St. Veronica, now seen in St. Peter's at Rome. Here in this bal- 



590 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

cony, built over the street, the remorse-strnck governor exhibited 
Jesus to the maddened mob, with the memorable words " Ecce 
Homo," and this lofty structure, certainly not unworthy to be the 
residence of a Roman proconsul, was the palace of Pontius Pilate, 
where the Saviour was arraigned and condemned. Here, a repaired 
breach in the wall indicates the staircase by which the Saviour 
ascended to the palace on that day. The staircase itself has been 
removed to Rome for many centuries, and is there exhibited in the 
Church of St. John Lateran, and is familiarly known to all travel- 
lers as the Scala Santa. It is impossible to accept the authenticity 
of the " Via Dolorosa." Constantinople, Rome, London, Paris, 
and every other capital of Europe, have undergone fewer sackings, 
sieges, and burnings, than Jerusalem. It would be difficult to 
identify any street in any city after the changes and accidents 
which time has wrought in a thousand years. It is a striking com- 
mentary upon the whole legend, that the house of Dives, as well as 
the house of Lazarus, is pointed out in the " Way of Sorrow," 
with the same confidence as the Judgment-Hall of Pilate. 

Yussef Effendi, with the brother and secretary of the pacha, 
attended us to the Mosque of Omar. It is only within the last live 
years that this mosque, scarcely less sacred in the eyes of Mussul- 
mans than the Church of the Holy Sepulchure is in ours, has been 
opened to Christian travellers. Even now a careful, though some- 
what disguised surveillance, is practised over them. The mosque 
stands in an area enclosed with a high, parapeted wall, overlooking 
the valley of Jehoshaphat, and confronting the Mount of Olives. 
This occupies one-sixth of the land of the entire city. On the east- 
ern side of this wall is a gate-way, built of marble, called by the 
Mussulmans the " Golden Gate," which they are fond of represent- 
ing as the " gate of the temple called Beautiful," but its modern 
architecture does not support that claim. It is only interesting 
from the tradition that it was closed with the Roman conquest, and 
has never been reopened. The so-called Mosque of Omar is not 
single. It consists of two distinct mosques, placed at some distance 
from each other — the one here named Kubbet-es-Suhkrah, or " the 
Dome of the Rock," commonly called the Mosque of Omar, and 



THE MOSQUE OF OMAE. 



591 



the Mosque-el- Aksa. Though differing entirely from the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, the Mosque of Omar is not less unique and 
peculiar in its consecrated antiquities. Twelve hundred years ago, 




MOSQUE OP OMAE. 



on the surrender of the Greek Patriarch, the Caliph Omar de- 
manded to be shown the site of the Jewish Temple. He was taken 
to the sacred rock, he knelt and prayed over it, and he built over it 
a mosque, which, with subsequent repairs, is the present "Dome of 
the Rock," or Mosque of Omar. In architectural design and execu- 
tion it rivals the finest in Cairo and Constantinople. Antedating 
the conquest of the Mussulmans in India, it has an elaborateness of 
embellishment, perhaps resulting from the influence of Greek and 
Roman art, which distinguishes this and the other religious struct- 
ures of modern Asia from the more severe, simple, and effective 
style of the mosques of Agra and Delhi. One would say, in compar- 
ing the two styles, that the Mosque of Omar has borrowed from the 
superstitions of the West, while those of India indicate a puritanical 
reformation. It is now sadly out of repair. Its magnificent gilded 

dome is blackened, and its stained glass windows are broken ; the 
45 



592 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

exquisite Arabic tracery marred, and the elaborately-inscribed texts 
from the Koran faded. Like the Holy Sepulchre, it is replete in 
all parts with relics and memorials held sacred by the Mussulman 
faith. The sheik of the mosque reverently removed for Mr. 
Seward the crimson-silk canopy which covers an irregular, flat lime- 
stone rock, sixty feet wide and five feet high, in the centre of the 
building, and encircled by a high iron railing. It is said this is the 
threshing-floor which King David bought of Araunah, the Jebusite, 
as a site for an altar of burnt-offerings. Modern writers accept it 
as the altar of burnt-offerings in the Temple of Solomon. Under- 
neath ©ne side of the rock is a vault, which connects with a well 
under the centre of the rock, now covered with a marble slab. 
This vaulted cavern is by Christian writers believed to have been 
the cesspool of the altar of burnt-offerings, but the Mohammedans 
revere it as the place of prayer of Abraham, David, Solomon, and 
Jesus Christ. On either side of the door of the vault are small 
altars, which the sheik calls the shrines of David and Solomon, but 
they bear carvings unmistakably Greek. On another side the sheik 
showed us an indentation which was made by the foot of Mohammed 
when he sprang from this rock into heaven, and also the imprint 
of the hand of the angel who threw the rock back to its resting- 
place when it was rising from its bed with the foot of the prophet ! 
Unfortunately, the prophet's footprint here differs in measurement 
from the footprints which he left, and which we personally saw, in 
Egypt and in India. We passed over the neglected court to the 
Mosque-el- Aksa. It is said to occupy the place and to retain the 
form of a Christian church or basilica which the Emperor Justinian 
built in the sixth century, in honor of the Virgin, and which was 
temporarily restored by the Crusaders. A part of it was assigned 
as an encampment for the military order then recently created by 
Saint-Louis, which from that circumstance took the name of 
Knights Templars, and which was so active and powerful through 
many centuries. 

El- Aksa is indeed a structure built in the customary design of 
the basilica. Its dimensions are two hundred and seventy-two 
feet long, by one hundred and eighty-four feet wide. It has seven 



A EECENT DISOOVEEY. 593 

aisles, supported by forty-five columns, of which thirty-three are 
marble, and are chiefly of the Corinthian order. But, what inter- 
ested us more is, a recent excavation under the pavement of this 
mosque, which proves to be an ancient gate. It has been closed 
and walled up, while the city has been built around it on the out- 
side. The massive though broken floor, the solid columns, and 
the heavy transverse stones which rest upon them, are wrought in 
a style neither Saracenic nor Greek, but shaped and ornamented 
in a manner which we remarked in the Egyptian temples. This 
newly-discovered gate-way is believed, by the distinguished ex- 
plorer, Captain Wilson, to have been one of the original entrances 
to the Temple of Solomon. ISTot only El-Aksa, but the whole area 
enclosed within the outer walls, now wears the appearance of neglect, 
dilapidation, and decay. Is this an evidence of the decline of the 
Mohammedan religion, or only of the increasing isolation of Jeru- 
salem ? We must go farther into the Turkish Empire to decide. 
Meantime, it is suggestive of much thought that not only the 
Mayor of Jerusalem, but the obliging sheik of the mosque, plain- 
tively and earnestly invoked Mr. Seward to use what they thought 
would be an influence of some weight with the Sultan at Constan- 
tinople, for the repair of the Mosque of Omar. The various points 
we have described in the Mosque of Omar are held to fix beyond 
all dispute the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. History, 
tradition, and a pride of the Jews, greater than was ever exhibited 
by any other nation, made that temple an object of admiration to 
the whole world. Though its base was Mount Moriah, the hill 
which bore that name must have bepn levelled when or before the 
temple was built. It was easily accessible by a gentle descent from 
all parts of the city, while the high wall built on the outer preci- 
pice rendered it impregnable on that side. 



CHAPTEE X. 

JERUSALEM AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 

Bethlehem. — The Grave of Rachel. — The City of Jerusalem. — The Mount of Olives. — The 
Tomb of Zachariah. — The Tomb of Absalom. — An American Jew. — Bethany. — 
Pilate's Palace. — The Greek Church in Palestine. — The Jews of Jerusalem. — Their 
Wailing-Place. — The Jewish Sabbath. — Attendance at the Synagogue. — Bishop 
Gobat. — Departure from Jerusalem. — Jaffa and Beirut. 

June 12th. — "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see 
this thing." 

Bethlehem is the one place in all the wide world which, by its 
memories and associations, elevates the soul with emotions un- 
mixed with sorrow, fear, or terror. The Christian mind, that is 
not unreasonably exacting, finds in the surroundings of Bethlehem, 
the " city of David," all the confirmation it needs or expects of the 
Gospel history — the broad, fertile mountain-plain, easily watered, 
and which, even now, amid the general desolation of the country, 
largely retains its verdure, and seems a natural field of the develop- 
ment of the patriarchal system. "In the way to Ephrath, which is 
Bethlehem," we rested under the shade of a graceful monument, 
recently erected by the believing Rothschilds, in full and unques- 
tioning faith that it covers the spot where Rachel was buried, and 
upon which " Jacob set a pillar upon her grave : that is the pillar 
of Rachel's grave unto this day." 

Bethlehem is built on the side of a gorge, on whose declivity run 
zigzag paths which are the streets of the village. The rocky steep 
has been cut perpendicularly down, and pierced with caves, which, 



BETHLEHEM. 



595 



with the addition, where it is practicable, of a second story con- 
structed of rude masonry, constitute the dwellings, storehouses, 
workshops, and inns of the village. If indeed " there went out a 
decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed,'' 
and if indeed it was needful that the poor JSTazarene, Joseph, must 
go, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea unto the city of David, 
to be taxed, with Mary his espoused wife," and if " the days were 
accomplished that she should be delivered," then the incidents of 




BETHLEHEM. 



the transaction, as they are related by the Evangelists, were not 
only natural, but inevitable. Bethlehem, neither more then than 
now, could have contained an inn in which there could have been 
found " room for them." The inn, in all countries and down even 
to our own time, is historically known by its equal provision for 
the entertainment of man and beast. The stable and the manger, 
throughout all Asiatic countries, no less in Palestine than in China, 
are adjuncts in the entertainment of an inn, quite equal in import- 



596 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

ance to the apartments in which the traveller of the better sort 
rests, while the plebeian or publican, declining that costly expense, 
shares the stable and the manger with his faithful and cherished 
mule, ox, or camel. So it could not have otherwise happened than 
that, when Mary should have " brought forth her first-born son," 
she should have " wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him 
in a manger ; because there was no room for them in the inn." 

The inhabitants of Bethlehem are native Christians, who sup- 
port themselves by the fruits which they sell at Jerusalem, and by 
the manufacture of cheap tokens, ornaments, and amulets, which 
pilgrims take home as mementos of the Holy Land. Mr. Seward 
remarks a visible improvement in the aspect, not only of Bethle- 
hem, but of the country about Jerusalem, which has been made 
since his visit of 1859. Something of this is due to the expendi- 
ture of the Greek Christians of Russia upon a new and beautiful 
church outside of the city, but- more is due to a small colony of 
Germans, who have become proprietors and cultivators here. 

June 13th. — " "Walk about Zion, and go round about her : tell 
the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her 
palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generation following." 

We have done so, and we have found it neither a short nor 
'an easy promenade. The city occupies two ridges of a mountain 
promontory, with the depression or valley between- them. The 
walls of the modern Turkish city have been so contracted with 
the decrease of the population, as to exclude large portions of the 
ancient city. Jerusalem is now divided according to its different 
classes of population. The Mohammedans are four thousand, 
and occupy the northeast quarter, including the whole area of the 
Mosque of Omar. The Jews are eight thousand, and have the 
southeast quarter. These two quarters overhang the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat and the brook Kedron. The Armenians number 
eighteen hundred, and have the southwest quarter ; and the other 
Christians, amounting to twenty-two hundred, have the northwest 
quarter, which overlooks the Yalley of Hinnom. "We issued from 
the city through St. Stephen's gate, which stands some two hundred 



THE TOMB OF ABSALOM. 597 

feet north of the Haram, the area of the Mosque of Omar. This 
gate is identified, by tradition only, with the martyrdom of St. 
Stephen. Our sure-footed animals carried us safely down the 
rocky, precipitous road, a hundred feet to the brook Kedron. Re- 
freshing ourselves with the limpid water from its pebbly bed, we 
climbed the eastern bank which is the base of the Mount of Olives. 
This entire base is covered north and south, as far as the eye can 
reach, with the tombs and slabs of the Jewish dwellers of the Holy 
City. It has been always sacred to the Jews, and it is the only 
place where the past and present of that extraordinary people meet. 
Here is a graceful monolith structure in the form of a temple, with 
a pyramidal top, hewn in shape without being detached from the 
native rock. You may have your choice of tradition in regard to 
it. The modern dwellers in Jerusalem tell you that it was built in 
honor of Zachariah, concerning whom the Saviour accused the 
Pharisees : " That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed 
upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of 
Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and 
the altar." Historical evidence of an inscription in the fourth cen- 
tury assigns this tomb to the prophet Josiah, while in the twelfth 
century it was described as the tomb of King Huzziah. To whom- 
soever it may belong, it is held in high veneration by the Jews 
throughout the world, and prayers offered up in it are believed to 
be always answered. The tomb of Absalom, a monolith cut out of 
the rock, in the same manner as the tomb just described, with an 
upper story of masonry, is attractive as well as curious. We tried 
to enter it, but found the main structure half filled up with a heap 
of loose stones. On making complaint of this, we found that we 
were very unreasonable, for these detached stones are the evidence 
of the genuineness of the tomb. 

" Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for him- 
self a pillar, which is in the king's dale : for he said, I have no son 
to keep my name in remembrance : and he called the pillar after 
his own name ; and it is called unto this day, Absalom's place." 

The Jews have been in the habit, as they passed through this 
burying-ground, of taking up a stone, and pelting with it the monu- 



598 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



merit of the rebellious son of David, and so, in the lapse of cen- 
turies, the heap has accumulated which obstructed our entrance. 
Notwithstanding all this, however, there is a growing distrust of 
the authenticity, though no one denies the antiquity, of the monu- 
ment. 

The Jews throughout the world, riot merely as pilgrims, but in 
anticipation of death, come here to be buried, by the side of the 
graves of their ancestors. As we sat on the deck of our steamer, 
coming from Alexandria to Jaffa, we remarked a family whom we 
supposed to be Germans. It consisted «of a plainly-dressed man, 
with a wife who was ill, and two children — one of them an infant 
in its cradle. The sufferings of the sick woman, and her effort to 
maintain a cheerful hope, interested us. The husband, seeing this, 
addressed us in English. Mr. Seward asked if he were an English- 




MOSQTTE ON THE MOUNT OP OLITES. 



man. He answered that he was an American Jew, that he had 
come from New Orleans, and was going to Jerusalem. "We parted 
with them on the steamer. The day after we reached the Holy 



BETHANY. 599 

City we learned that the poor woman had climbed the mountain 
with her husband and children, and arrived the day after us. She 
died immediately, and so achieved the design of her pilgrimage. 
She was buried in this cemetery. She was a Jewess, and, according 
to the Jewish interpretation of the prophecies, the Jew that dies. in 
Jerusalem will certainly rise in paradise. 

The Mount of Olives, with the customary proclivity of the faith- 
ful, has been divided into three: the central and loftiest one is 
called the Mount of Olives ; the northern one, Mount Scopus ; the 
southern, the Mount of Evil Counsel. Three paths lead over the 
Mount of Olives : one, on the north, in the sunken line which 
marks the junction of Mount Scopus ; the central one, directly 
across the Mount of Olives, at its highest point ; and a third, 
winding at the foot of the slope which separates Olivet from the 
Mount of Evil Counsel. A rough ride of three miles over the lat- 
ter brought us at noon quite around the mountain-summit to Beth- 
any. Little, however, were we disposed to complain o± the hard- 
ships of the dreary ride, when we remembered that we were on 
the very same road that David travelled, fleeing from Absalom, 
" toward the way of the wilderness and wept as he went up." 

Bethany, on the opposite side of Olivet, overlooks the Dead 
Sea, and beyond it the long, stupendous range of the mountains 
of Moab. With a previous instruction, we were able to discern the 
Yalley of the Jordan, and to detect a silver thread of its waters, 
lying, far away to the northeast, beyond the desert which covers 
the eastern slope of the mountains of Judea. Bethany, as it pre- 
sents itself in the simple narrative of the Gospels, is a delight, and 
a charm. The friendship which existed between Jesus and Mary 
and Martha, their implicit trust in him, and his benevolent conde- 
scension in raising their brother from the dead, come up vividly 
before one at the very mention of the name of the humble village 
in which they lived. It was from Bethany also, then embowered 
in olive, palm, sycamore, and fig trees, that the Lord commenced 
that memorable, triumphal progress across the mountain to Jerusa- 
lem, in which " much people, that were come to the feast, when 
they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of 



600 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

palm-trees, and went forth to meet him, and- cried, Hosanna ! 
Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the 
Lord." 

The hospitalities of the Greek and Latin monasteries here have 
been kindly extended to Mr. Seward by their superiors. 

Mr. Seward received, to-day, visits from all the foreign consuls 
residing at the Holy City. After this, attended by a guard of honor, 
he returned the visit of the Pacha of Jerusalem, and was surprised 
to find that, although the Scala Santa was removed so long ago to 
Eome, he found no difficulty in ascending to the upper story, where 
he was hospitably entertained by the present Turkish governor in 
the palace which we have all along been assured was the identical 
gubernatorial residence of Pontius Pilate. Mr. Seward says that, 
if the tradition is true, the vacillating Roman governor had a won- 
derfully fine modern house. We spent the evening " on the house- 
tops " of the palace of Bishop Gobat and liis family. 

The Greek Church in Russia has lately manifested a new and 
extraordinary interest in regard to the Holy Land. The number 
of pilgrims from that country has become immense. They come 
down the Black Sea, and through the Levant. The Greeks of 
Russia have lately built, in a beautiful suburb, an extensive church, 
with a home or asylum for pilgrims of each sex. These structures 
are much more costly and elegant than any other Christian estab- 
lishments built here. The enterprise enjoys the protection, and 
doubtless the aid, of the Russian Government. It is an indication 
that Russia adheres, notwithstanding the disaster at Sevastopol, to 
the cardinal policy of Peter the Great and of the late Emperor 
Nicholas. Under whatever auspices it may happen, and with 
whatever political design, it is gratifying to see this renewal of 
Christian interest in Jerusalem. 

June 15th. — " And the name of the city from that day shall be, 
the Lord is there." Our last day at Jerusalem has been spent, as 
it ought to have been, among and with the Jews, who were the 
builders and founders of the city, and who cling the closer to it for 
its disasters and desolation. "We have mentioned that the Jewish 



THE W AILING-PLACE. 



601 



quarter adjoins, on the southeast, the high wall of the Haram. 
This wall is a close one, while the upper part, like all the Turkish 
walls of the city, is built of small stone. The base of this portion 
of the wall, enclosing the Mosque of Omar, and the site of the 
ancient temple, consists of five tiers of massive, accurately-bevelled 
blocks. It is impossible to resist the impression at first view, not- 
withstanding the prophecy, that this is a portion of the wall of 
the Temple of Solomon, which was hewn in the quarries and set 
up in its place without the noise of the hammer and the axe. So 




JEWS' W AILING-PLACE. 



at least the Jews believe. For centuries (we do not know how 
many) the Turkish rulers have allowed the oppressed and exiled 
Jews the privilege of gathering at the foot of this wall one day in 
every week, and pouring out their lamentations over the fall of 
their beloved city, and praying for its restoration to the Lord, who 
promised, in giving its name, that he would " be there." 

The Jewish sabbath being on Saturday, and beginning at sun- 
set on Friday, the weekly wail of the Jews under the wall takes 
place on Friday, and is a preparation for the rest and worship of 



602 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

the day which they are commanded to " keep holy." The small 
rectangular oblong area, without roof or canopy, serves for the 
gathering of the whole remnant o± the Jewish nation in Jerusalem. 
Here, whether it rains or shines, they come together at an early 
hour, old and young, men, women, and little children — the poor 
and the rich, in their best costumes, discordant as the diverse na- 
tions from which they come. They are attended by their rabbis, 
each bringing the carefully-preserved and elaborately-bound text of 
the book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, either in their respec- 
tive languages, or in the original Hebrew. For many hours they 
pour forth their complaints, reading and reciting the poetic lan- 
guage of the prophet, beating their hands against the wall, and 
bathing the stones with their kisses and tears. It is no mere for- 
mal ceremony. During the several hours while we were spectators 
of it, there was not one act of irreverence of indifference. Only 
those who have seen the solemn prayer-meeting of a religious re- 
vival, held by some evangelical denomination at home, can have a 
true idea of the solemnity and depth of the profound grief and pious 
feeling exhibited by this strange assembly on so strange an occa- 
sion, although no ritual in the Catholic, Greek, or Episcopal Church 
is conducted with more solemnity and propriety. 

Though we supposed our party unobserved, we had scarcely 
left the place, when a meek, gentle Jew, in a long, plain brown 
dress, his light, glossy hair falling in ringlets on either side of his 
face, came to us, and, respectfully accosting Mr. Seward, exj>ressed 
a desire that he would visit the new synagogue, where the sabbath- 
service was about to open at sunset. Mr. Seward assented. A 
crowd of " the peculiar people " attended and showed us the way to 
the new house of prayer, which we are informed was recently built 
by a rich countryman of our own whose name we did not leam. 
It is called the American Synagogue. It is a very lofty edifice, sur- 
mounted by a circular dome. Just underneath it a circular gallery 
is devoted exclusively to the women. Aisles run .between the rows 
of columns which support the gallery and dome. On the plain 
stone pavement, rows of movable, wooden benches with backs are 
free to all who come. At the side of the synagogue, opposite the 



THE JEWISH SERVICE. 603 

door, is an elevated desk on a platform accessible only by movable 
steps, and resembling more a pulpit than a chancel. It was 
adorned with red-damask curtains, and behind them a Hebrew in- 
scription. Directly in the centre of the room, between the door 
and this platform, is a dais six feet high and ten feet square, sur- 
rounded by a brass railing, carpeted, and containing cushioned 
seats. We assume that this dais, high above the heads of the wor- 
shippers, and on the same elevation with the platform appropriated 
to prayer, is assigned to the rabbis. We took seats on one of the 
benches against the wall ; presently an elderly person, speaking 
English imperfectly, invited Mr. Seward to change his seat ; he 
hesitated, but, on being informed by Mr. Finkelstein that the per- 
son who gave the invitation was the president of the synagogue, 
Mr. Seward rose, and the whole party, accompanying him, were 
conducted up the steps and were comfortably seated on the dais, in 
the " chief seat in the synagogue." On this dais was a tall, branch- 
ing, silver candlestick with seven arms. 

The congregation now gathered in, the women filling the gal- 
lery, and the men, in varied costumes, and wearing hats of all 
shapes and colors, sitting or standing as they pleased. The light- 
ing of many silver lamps, judiciously arranged, gave notice that the 
sixth day's sun had set, and that the holy day had begun. In- 
stantly, the worshippers, all standing, and as many as could turning 
to the wall, began the utterance of prayer, bending backward and 
forward, repeating the words in a chanting tone, which each read 
from a book, in a low voice like the reciting of prayers after the 
clergyman in the Episcopal service. It seemed to us a service, 
without prescribed form or order. When it had continued some 
time, thinking that Mr. Seward might be impatient to leave, the 
chief men requested that he would remain a few moments, until a 
prayer should be offered for the President of the United States, and 
another for himself. ISTow a remarkable rabbi, clad in a long, rich, 
flowing sacerdotal dress, walked up the aisle ; a table was lifted 
from the floor to the platform, and, by a steep ladder which was 
held by two assistant priests, the rabbi ascended the platform. A 
large folio Hebrew manuscript was laid on the table before him, 



604 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

and he recited with marked intonation, in clear falsetto, a prayer, 
in which he was joined by the assistants reading from the same 
manuscript. We were at first uncertain whether this was a psalm 
or a prayer, but we remembered that all the Hebrew prayers are 
expressed in a tone which rises above the recitative and approaches 
melody, so that a candidate for the priesthood is always required to 
have a musical voice. At the close of the reading, the rabbi came 
to Mr. Seward and informed him that it was a prayer for the Presi- 
dent of the United States, and a thanksgiving for the deliverance 
of the Union from its rebellious assailants. Then came a second ; 
it was in Hebrew and intoned, but the rabbi informed us that it 
was a prayer of gratitude for Mr. Seward's visit to the Jews at 
Jerusalem, for his health, for his safe return to his native land, and 
a long, happy life. The rabbi now descended, and it was evident 
that the service was at an end. Coming down from the dais, we 
were met by a band of musicians playing on drums, fifes, and vio- 
lins. We questioned whether this music was a part of the service 
of the synagogue, but our doubt was removed when we found it 
accompanying us to the gate of our hotel. The Jews, in their dis- 
persion, are understood to be forbidden the use of musical instru- 
ments in worship. Their chants of praise are the traditional songs 
of Israel, just as the Christians, who have succeeded them, prefer, to 
all other devotional hymns, the Psalms of David. 

A pleasant dinner ensued with the United States consul and his 
accomplished wife, where we had the honor 01 meeting the venera- 
ble Bishop Gobat and Mrs. Gobat. We infer that the Coptic, 
Catholic, Greek, and Armenian Churches have given up the design 
of proselytism here, and now confine their labors to the enlarge- 
ment and improvement of their several convents for the entertain- 
ment of Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. On the other hand, 
the Protestant missionaries from Germany, Great Britain, and the 
United States, are the living, active preachers and teachers of the 
Gospel in Syria. 

Jaffa, June 18th. — We left Jerusalem at that early hour when 
from the " Dome of the Bock," and the Mosque el-Aksa, and from 



BEIRUT. 605 

every minaret in the city, the shrill Moslem call to prayer was re- 
sounding. The Pacha of Jerusalem, with his suite and guard, 
joined us at the Jaffa gate, and travels with us to Damascus, giv- 
ing Mr. Seward his protection, and insisting on his taking prece- 
dence throughout the journey. But our ways are not Turkish 
ways, and, as a certainty, the Turkish ways are not our ways ; and, 
while we rode together, and have entered villages and towns as one 
party, we separated on the road to eat and sleep. The pacha and 
his party lunched by the way-side at the foot of the wilderness of 
John the Baptist ; we took our lunch and siesta by the side of 
the spring under the shade of a great willow-oak-tree. "We rested 
with the good Franciscan monks at Ramleh ; the pacha and his 
party were guests of the governor of that place. At Ramleh and 
at Jaffa the Turkish bands and cavalry, with the sheiks, digni- 
taries, and authorities of the mosques on the way, met, saluted, and 
joined us in our progress. The gay Turkish cavalry amused and 
interested us, on our way across the plain of Sharon, by their feats 
of horsemanship and their strategy of battle, charge and retreat, 
and in the exercise of el-djerid. We do not wonder that Napoleon 
said that, if he could have the Mameluke cavalry with the French 
army, he could conquer the world. The journey was an easy one, 
and the mountains of Judea seemed much less distant and cheerless 
than when we were so wearily climbing them on our way to Jerusa- 
lem. "We are passing our last hour here with Mrs. Hay at the 
vice-consulate, preparatory to our embarkation with the Pacha of 
Jerusalem in the Apollo, an Austrian Lloyd's steamer, for Beirut. 

Beirut, June l§th. — We had the pleasure of a visit from the 
eminent Dr. Yan Dyck and Dr. Bliss, his worthy associate, and we 
found them not less highly esteemed by the natives here than they 
deservedly are at home. It was our long-cherished purpose to cross 
the range of Lebanon to Damascus, and, on the way, to visit Baal- 
bec, the Grecian Heliopolis. Mr. Seward was expected at Damas- 
cus, and arrangements had been made for his hospitable reception. 
But the way is long ; the journey, especially the incidental excur- 
sion to Baalbec, rough and tedious. The hot season has already 



606 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



commenced, and Mr. Seward's strength seems somewhat impaired 
by the fatiguing explorations of Palestine. These considerations, 
together with the temporary indisposition of another member of 
the party, and the hazard of dividing it, obliged us, though with 
much reluctance, to give up the journey. Perhaps the impression 
made upon us by the unhappy fate of the two daughters of Dr. 
Woolsey, who perished from the exhaustion of the journey from 
Damascus to Jerusalem, last winter, has had its weight. The gov- 
ernor's dissuasion from the journey decided us. 

At four o'clock we left our hotel and returned to the Apollo, 
whose deck afforded us a better view than can be obtained in the 
town itself of the lofty range of Lebanon, with its whole western 
declivity bathed in gorgeous light, and its long, castellated snow- 
clad crest reflecting the rays of an unclouded setting sun. 




TOWEB OF DAVTD, JERUSALEM. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FROM PALESTINE TO GREECE. 

Impressions of Palestine. — The Egyptian Race. — Egyptian Civilization. — Phoenicia and 
Palestine. — The Four Religions. — What we owe to the Jews. — Present State of 
Palestine. — The Island of Cyprus. — The Cesnola Collection. — Smyrna. — An Excur- 
sion to Ephesus. — The Seven Sleepers. — Mr. Wood's Researches. — The Temple of 
Diana. — The Isles of Greece. — Tinos. — The City of Syra. — An Illumination. 

Steamer Apollo, June 20th. — We are to see no more of either 
Palestine or Syria. It is time to set down the result of the impres- 
sions received in them. As we neared the promontory of Sinai, 
which divides the head of the Red Sea into the two gulfs of Akaba 
and Suez, the thought occurred that we were approaching the site 
of the opening scene of the world's civilization. The one half of 
that site is Egypt, the other half Syria, including in ancient times, 
as now, the two distinct divisions of Palestine and Phoenicia. We 
find no satisfaction in the attempt to trace the nations which in- 
habited these regions, either to a common origin or to distinct races 
— at least we can do nothing of that kind here now. It is certain 
that the ancient Egyptians were neither negroes from the west 
bank of the Nile nor Arabs from the eastern shore of the Red Sea, 
for they fought and conquered tribes and nations of both those re- 
gions. The negroes and Arabs, like our North American Indian 
races, prefer the desert and its habits to civilization. Neither were 
the ancient Egyptians Jews. We distinguished the Jews from the 
Egyptians in the paintings on the tombs, especially at Reni-Uassan. 

Nor were the ancient Egyptians of any Western tvpe of the Cau- 
46 



608 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

casian race. The probability is, that some tribes of Northwestern 
Asia found their way to the fertile plains of the Delta, and ex- 
tended their settlements up the narrow valley of the Nile, conquer- 
ing aboriginal peoples in the desert on either bank to the borders 
of Nubia. Here the adventurers crowded into close contact, and, 
threatened with invasions from either desert, as well as from the 
savage African tribes of ancient Ethiopia, organized an indepen- 
dent and isolated state. Its history shows that Egypt never had a 
foreign ally, and that it was rarely ambitious of foreign conquest 
or influence. The system of government was a theocracy, not 
of one god, but of several or many gods. Its rulers were either 
priests or chiefs, whom the priests confessed and reverenced as the 
sons of gods. It is probable that no part of the human race was 
ever without a spoken language, but the ancient Egyptians im- 
proved this possession, which is common to all nations, by adding 
to it the inventions of architecture, writing, painting, and sculp- 
ture, inventions by which men not only could communicate their 
ideas to those present with them, but could record them for the in- 
struction and guidance of succeeding generations. They acquired 
a sufficient astronomical science to mark the divisions of the year 
and the seasons, and they acquired high practical skill in the irriga- 
tion and cultivation of the earth. They developed a rude military 
art, and naturally and easily acquired the little skill in navigation 
which their inland situation required. An' experience of the acci- 
dents of the Nile taught them how, in the seasons of plenty, to 
make provision against occasional famine. The Egyptian nation 
went no further. Their religion, the first known among men, ac- 
cepted the intuitive suggestion of the human mind, that it cannot 
altogether perish in death, but must at some time, and somewhere, 
return to activity again. So the Egyptians contented themselves 
with building temples worthy of the gods by whom they were pro- 
tected, and monuments to commemorate the greatness of their 
heroes, and with recording, in the most effective and enduring- 
manner possible, their national achievements, depositing the rec- 
ords in those imperishable temples and monuments ; burying their 
dead with such precautions as would preserve the body in safety, 



THE PHOENICIANS. 609 

for the return of the wandering spirit which had left it, for three 
thousand years. 

Men and nations have many wants for which this unique system 
of isolated Egyptian civilization made either no provision at all, or 
no adequate one. The first of those wants, among a maritime 
tribe or people, is commerce by navigation. Next, more effective 
means of defence and aggression. It is not possible for the human 
race anywhere to remain long in the belief that they must con- 
tinue passive subjects of a direct government of the gods. Men 
can never be content with any one system of religion, or its ex- 
planations of their origin, their duties, and their destinies. They 
continually demand and strive for a higher, purer, nobler one. The 
human mind is never content with any system of education or 
learning in the arts. It is constantly striving for a better and 
more perfect one. Man is a social being, and needs society and 
laws regulating social intercourse between states, tribes, and na- 
tions, as much as between individuals. 

These natural wants of human society found embodiment and 
activity among that great people which is first known to us as a 
civilized nation on the Mediterranean coast, under the name of 
Phoenicians. It is certain that the Phoenicians were not Egyp- 
tians. It is equally clear that they were not Jews ; for, from the 
earliest mention of them by Jewish historians, they were aliens and 
strangers, and sometimes enemies. But it is certain that, while 
they occasionally derived knowledge and learning from Egypt, they 
invented and perfected commerce and navigation, laws for society 
at home, and laws for social intercourse with foreign nations. 
They extended and diffused all their acquired information, knowl- 
edge, and arts, to the inhabitants of Asia Minor, and of the Greek 
islands. Phoenicia, therefore, was the cradle of a new civilization, 
differing and distinct from that of Egypt. This civilization, im- 
proved by Greece and Rome, is doubtless the basis of our own 
modern "Western civilization. Midway between those two great 
original states, Egypt and Phoenicia, with their very different civil- 
ization, arose a third state, distinct, different, and antagonistic to 
both. This state was the Jewish nation, the people of Israel, who, 



610 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

as a single tribe, in a season of famine, entered Egypt for bread. 
After a long struggle they obtained their deliverance, and, effecting 
the conquest of that portion of the Mediterranean coast which lay 
between Phoenicia on the one hand, and Egypt on the other, 
founded the state known in ancient times, not less than in our 
own, as Palestine. While they brought away from Egypt arts and 
knowledge, they also readily adopted many of the improvements 
and arts of the Phoenicians. Whether by Divine illumination or 
otherwise, they reached the sublime truth of the unity of God, and, 
arraying themselves in hostility against the Phoenicians and the 
Egyptians, who both denied it, and adhered to their polytheistic 
system, they became a distinct and independent people. They 
have held ever since to that simple and sublime faith. 

What, then, does modern civilization owe to the Jewish na-> 
tion? Not letters, nor architecture, nor painting, nor sculpture, 
nor philosophy, nor science, nor civil government. All these, 
modern society has derived from the Phoenicians or the Egyptians, 
or from both. But modern civilization derives its knowledge of 
the relations of man toward his Maker, and the system of faith, 
morals, and manners, built upon that knowledge, from the Jewish 
nation. The religious systems now existing in the world are only 
four : First, pagan, that of ancient Egypt ; second, Jewish, that 
of the Hebrews ; third, Christian ; fourth, Mohammedan. Jews, 
Christians, and Mohammedans, all agree that the Jewish faith is 
an advance above paganism. All equally agree that Christianity 
is an advance above paganism. All equally agree that Mohamme- 
danism, with all its errors, is an advance above paganism. But 
the Jewish religion was established by the Jews alone — Christian- 
ity comes to us as a gift from the Jewish nation — and even Mo- 
hammedanism is only a perversion of Christianity, derived from 
the Jews. Thus the world owes these three forms of religion di- 
rectly or indirectly to the Jewish nation. 

Now, it is to be noticed that all these three systems of religion 
are favorable and effective in advancing human progress ; that 
however nations, which embrace either of these faiths, may decline, 
yet the progress which they introduce is taken up and continued 



POPULATION OF PALESTINE. 611 

by other nations; whereas the civilization which is built upon a 
system of pagan faith has been corrupted, and is becoming effete 
everywhere. Continental Asia needs regeneration, and can obtain 
it only through the agency of Western civilization derived from the 
Jewish nation. Western civilization is living and effective, and, 
while it is progressing in the West, it is actively regenerating the 
effete civilization of the East. 

We have said that we owe neither science, nor government, nor 
arts, nor arms, to the Jews ; but all considerate men will agree 
that we have derived poetry from that people — if not the art of 
poetry itself, at least that part of the art which is most sublime and 
beneficent in its influences. Moreover, to whom, but to the Jewish 
nation, are we indebted for the civilization of domestic life and its 
relations ? Certainly not to Egypt. Ancient Egypt, indeed, occa- 
sionally had queens, but no women. Neither her monuments, her 
sculpture, nor her painting, present us with the idea of woman as 
that idea has developed and culminated in a civilized age. Wher- 
ever the pagan system prevails, throughout all Asia, woman is 
unknown as a force or power in society. Nor can we trace the 
domestic relation in its present form to Greece or Phoenicia, while 
it was perfectly developed in the Jews as early as the time of our 
Saviour. Heroic men have their discords in profane history, but it 
is only in the sacred history of the Jews and of the Christians in 
Jerusalem that we find Mary, Martha, Esther, Ruth, Naomi, 
Rachel, and the daughter of Jephthah. There are two other obliga- 
tions of modern society to the Jewish nation. While we do not 
suppose that society has existed in any country without laws, yet it 
was through the Jewish nation that we have received the deca- 
logue, paramount in authority to all merely conventional laws, as 
well as superior in the comprehensiveness of its commands. Again, 
while all nations have felt the necessity of occasional days of rest 
and devotion as indispensable to society, it was the Jews who first 
had the idea of resting on the seventh day and hallowing it. 

The population of Palestine is estimated at only two hundred 
thousand. It is scattered over mountains, which seem only min- 
gled masses of rocks and ruins, with here and there a smiling val- 



C12 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

ley or dell, which, in vain solicits society and cultivation. Jeru- 
salem, without trade, without any organized society, without even 
rich landed proprietors, is a congregation of ecclesiastics and me- 
chanics or artisans, who subsist by supplying the few wants of the 
annual crowds of religious pilgrims, generally poor, who come to 
pay their vows at the sepulchre. Probably no town of an equal 
population in the Alps or Rocky Mountains is so universally poor 
as Jerusalem. In looking over the country now, travellers find it 
difficult to conceive that it once sustained three millions of vigor- 
ous, prosperous, and happy people. Travellers have two different 
ways of accounting for this : a skeptical class conclude that the an- 
cient glory and greatness of Palestine were exaggerated ; another 
class, pious and credulous, infer that the land has been wasted by a 
scourge, a curse for the obduracy of its ancient people. The truth 
doubtless is, that Palestine in the day of the Jewish nation was just 
as it is described by her poets and prophets : its valleys rejoiced in 
corn and wine ; its mountains were covered with olives, figs, 
pomegranates, and mulberries, and even its rocky cliffs with flocks 
and herds. For two thousand years, Palestine has been a theatre 
of civil war, and of foreign wars instigated by ambition, cupidity, re- 
ligious propagandism, and persecution. Persians, Greeks, Romans, 
Christians, Mussulmans, English, French, Turks, and Germans, 
have all participated in these conflicts. Its ancient people, ex- 
hausted, dispersed, impoverished, and desolated, have left the ter- 
races on its mountains to go to waste, after being denuded of their 
woody covering, while they have fled from and abandoned its thou- 
sand villages for shelter in the rocks. We know not what has 
become of the race which once made Palestine the pride and glory 
of the world — they have mostly disappeared in these desolating 
wars. 

The Roman conquerors were content with subjugating the coun- 
try ; the Crusaders were neither agriculturists, shepherds, nor colo- 
nists ; and those who remained were merely monks and hermits. 
Mussulman propagandism employs only the exterminating sword, 
and the Turk has extended into Palestine the barbarism which the 
successful armies of the "Prophet" established m every country 



SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN 613 

where they appeared. The Bedouin Arabs followed the Moham- 
medan conquerors, and there could be no safe or peaceful cultiva- 
tion in the neighborhood of their tents. While this devastation 
has in every century become more complete, the European nations 
have been as constantly moved with a desire for the regeneration 
of Palestine. This desire has manifested itself in two schemes very 
different, and yet both equally impracticable. 

The Jews expect the regeneration of Palestine through a provi- 
dential restoration of themselves to the ancient city. The Chris- 
tians look for the same happy consummation through the missionary 
instruction of this discordant and wretched people. "We would 
disturb no benevolent religious hope, but it seems to us that the 
ways appointed or allowed by Providence do not necessarily re- 
quire the restoration of Jerusalem or of Palestine to the power and 
prestige they enjoyed under the reign of Solomon, any more than 
they require the restoration of Memphis and Egypt, of Athens and 
Greece, of Rome and Italy. If Solomon could come again upon 
the earth, and see the mocking Mosque of Omar on the site of the 
glorious temple he built, and see his royal gardens run to brambles 
and weeds, and find, instead of the towers and palaces in which 
he gloried, a city enclosing within a Turkish wall a mere huddle 
of infidels — the Egypt which he feared, a solitude — the Ezion-geber, 
whence he dispatched his ships to Ophir, a heap of sand — and 
Lebanon covered with mulberries instead of cedars and firs, we 
think he would concede that there is at last " something new under 
the sun." Nevertheless, it is only in one sense that there is change 
from the past. Human nature and the human race are the same.. 
They change places, circumstances, and conditions, but their destiny 
remains the same, and their progress toward it is continuous and 
onward. Empires and nations, as well as individuals, are mortal, 
but the human race, for aught we know, is continuous on earth. In 
modern times, at least, the work of human progress is carried on 
chiefly by commerce and immigration ; perhaps it was always so. 
Long before the fall of Jerusalem, " the star of empire " had begun 
to move westward. It is likely to continue to move in the same 
direction until it returns to the point in the heavens whence 



OU EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

it took its departure. New capitals and new nations have already 
come into existence, and more will come before Palestine and Jeru- 
salem will be restored. But this is not discouraging to any just 
hopes of the East. A slight improvement is already noticeable in 
Palestine. Jaffa, Caipha, and Beirut already exhibit some pleasing 
germs of progress planted by the always patient and enterprising 
Germans. The more that new capitals and nations are built up in 
the West, the more will the renewing, revivifying effect be felt 
in the East, and, without waiting for the establishment of republics 
and Christianity in India and China, or even in Japan, we may see 
civilized, enlightened Christian nations come into existence in 
Palestine, as well as in Syria and in Egypt. 

The Jewish improvement and Christian missions are not to be 
rejected or undervalued. They will cooperate in producing these 
results, though insufficient in themselves to produce them. The 
Jewish endowments and Christian missions are, after all, only for- 
eign charities. No nation ever was or can be regenerated by mere 
charity from abroad. But charity, going hand-in-hand with com- 
merce and immigration, effects every thing. It has been so in the 
Sandwich Islands, and in every part of America. Perhaps we need 
to see Constantinople before we decide upon the important question 
whether the empire of Turkey is beginning to yield to the renovat- 
ing influences which reach it from the "West. It is certain that 
thus far in Palestine and Syria, as well as in Egypt, we find Mussul- 
man bigotry modified, and Oriental prejudices declining. This is 
an auspicious omen of the gradual improvement of Palestine. We 
have seen, not only the railroad, but the ship-canal in Egypt, as 
well as the turnpike-road and the telegraph in Palestine. Why 
may we not expect to see the railroad as well as the telegraph in 
Palestine? How can there be telegraphs and railroads anywhere 
without progress and civilization ? 

June 21^, off Cyprus. — The island of Cyprus, the Turkish out- 
post in the Mediterranean, known to us only by the fervent poetic 
descriptions of the ancients, and by the commercial reports of its 
fruitfulness in modern times, was for us, as we suppose it is for all 



THE CESNOLA COLLECTION. 615 

travellers, a disappointment. Its population, once a million, is now 
only eighty thousand. Its first capital Paphos, now a mere village 
on the beach — its later capital, Idalium, sunk into the earth, is now 
visited only at Larnica, a dull modern Turkish village seaport, an 
ugly town at the base of a broken range of sand-hills. Small 
clusters of date-palms or orchards appear at intervals at the left of 
the village, while a small strip of verdure stretches behind the town 
at the foot of the parched hills. They tell us here that they have 
had no rain for three years, and the island is dried up. Exaggerated 
as the description of it may have been by the ancients, it is never- 
theless an island abounding in the richest and rarest of fruit. Not 
only its figs, but its raisins and wine, are recognized as familiar 
articles of commerce throughout the world. The United States 
consul, General di Cesnola, entertained us during the morning, 
and we had an opportunity to test the island proverb that "so 
many days are added to one's allotted term of life, by every draught 
of its delicious wine." We did not quaif enough to add much to 
our longevity, although 

"The brown bees of Hymettus 
Make their honey not so sweet." 

We were especially interested in a rare collection of antiques 
which General di Cesnola has fortunately made. Purchasing a 
piece of ground, once a farm, which proved to be part of the ancient 
city of Idalium, and obtaining leave of the Turkish authorities to 
dig, he has gone down through at least three cemeteries in tiers, 
one above another, and has unearthed more than fourteen thou- 
sand articles, from the tombs of successive generations, which flour- 
ished through a period of probably two thousand years. Each one 
of these relies has a great value for its rarity, but the aggregate 
collection has a peculiar and even a more curious one, because it 
presents works of art and taste, statues, tablets, busts, vases, lamps, 
coins, and inscriptions, utensils and ornaments of gold, silver, glass, 
and terra-cotta, in a combination that, like a series of chronological 
tables, illustrates the history not only of Cyprus, but of civilization 
itself, 



616 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

The lowest stratum is a collection of articles as low and rude as 
the attempts at carving and sculpture of the North-American In- 
dians. These were either made by or copied from the ancient 
Egyptians and Assyrians. Then comes the next stratum, compris- 
ing the improved works of art of the Phoenicians, nearer neighbors 
to Cyprus, and historically recognized as its colonizers. Next 
come relics of the Persians ; next after them, in the ascending 
series, are those of the Greeks, among which are works of statuary 
and carving not unworthy of the times of Pericles and Phidias ; 
then those of the era of Alexander ; lastly, those of the period of 
the Roman emperors. 

There is a remarkable unity, however, running through the 
whole of these relics. In every layer of them were found mani- 
fold figures of Yenus, the guardian goddess of the Cyprians, in 
every attitude and association, from a plate of copper roughly 
shapen into a human form to the Goddess of Love rising from the 
wave in the conch-shell at Paphos, or attended by her son Cupid in 
her triumphal car, drawn by gentle doves, graceful swans, or active 
little sparrows. We noticed no Christian relics. Paul and Bar- 
nabas labored here. The latter was a native of Cyprus, but doubt- 
less their contemporaries and followers had modes of sepulture dif- 
ferent from those of the pagans. It is sincerely to be hoped that 
this valuable collection will be secured by some museum or archaeo- 
logical society in the United States. 1 

Smyrna, June Mth. — Smyrna, the ancient queen of Ionia, 
which, according to the historical accounts, has slidden down the 
rocky coast to the level beach, presents a scene of life and activity 
unusual in the East. The harbor and wharves are filled with light 
and graceful shipping. We mistook for a modern Turkish fortifica- 
tion the ruins of a Venetian fort on a cliff which overhangs the 
city with picturesque effect. Near the summit is the cave-tomb 
which is consecrated in Christian affections as the tomb of Poly- 
carp, native bishop and martyr of Smyrna. The town, stretching 

1 Since this was written, the Cesnola collection has been purchased for the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art, and is now (1873) in New York. 



AN EXCURSION TO EPHESUS. 617 

a mile along the curving shore, seems nearly embowered in orange- 
orchards and cypress-groves. On near approach, an ancient part 
of the town wears the dull aspect of age and neglect, but there is a 
new quarter which exhibits elegant structures, indicative of com- 
mercial prosperity and enterprise. This improvement, together 
with a railroad just constructed, excites some hope that Greece, so 
long dead, may live again. The government estimate of the popu- 
lation is one hundred and fifty thousand ; we think it one hundred 
thousand. 

Here, as in other Turkish ports, the authorities, with the United 
States consul, came on board to receive Mr. Seward, and gave him 
on shore a demonstrative welcome. "We lose no time in making an 
excursion by railroad this afternoon to the ruins of Ephesus. 

Smyrna is situated nearly midway on a promontory which pro- 
jects into the JEgean. Ephesus is fifty miles southeast, at the head 
of the bay, and at the mouth of the Meander, while Samos, at the 
opening of the bay, commands both ports. 

The country between Smyrna and Ephesus, even under Turkish 
rule, is highly cultivated with cereals and fruits. At this season it 
is brightly pink and green with wild oleanders and grain-fields, 
while it is not without the embellishment of ornamental villas and 
many pretty villages. 

Guides, horses, and grooms, were in waiting, in pursuance of 
telegraphic instructions, at the station. "We rode in the rosy light 
of sunset across the low banks of the Meander, a marsh now, as it 
was two thousand years ago. The bay affords a magnificent har- 
bor, with distant views of Samos and Scio. 

Ephesus stood on a plain broken by hills, high but easy of 
ascent. The famous Temple of Diana is represented by the an- 
cients as having been conspicuous in the approach to the city from 
the sea. Probably all or most of the public edifices stood on the 
summits of the hills, while the lower grounds, not less than the hills 
themselves, were occupied with dwellings and shops. 

There is no reason to doubt that Ephesus wore a noble as well 
as a cheerful aspect. Within the entire area of the ancient city 
there is not now found one human habitation. There are ruins, 



618 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

but nothing more, nothing else. Entering that area, we found 
that experimental excavations had been made, which had left frag- 
ments of marble columns scattered in all directions. Crossing, 
not without some danger, the gaping pits made by these excava- 
tions, we found, on one of the hill-sides, the cemetery of the Ephe- 
sians. Tombs, some single alcoves, others vaulted chambers, had 
been cut in the solid rock. The largest of these chambers was as- 
serted by our Turkish guide to be the tomb of St. Luke. But our 
historical researches do not give us any satisfactory account of the 
manner of the death of that apostle. Descending from the hill, we 
came into a wild, romantic dell, where an angle of the precipice 
had been cut away and two large chambers excavated, one of them 
having a vaulted Grecian roof. We could not conjecture the de- 
sign of this grotto, overhung with tangled shrubs and trees. It 
seemed too airy and graceful for a tomb, too inconvenient and som- 
bre for a dwelling, and too small for a temple. Our guide solved 
the difficulty with ease. He said it was the identical cave of the 
" Seven Sleepers.'* He did not know when the seven sleepers 
went to sleep or why. Fortunately, our early reading of romance 
supplied us with the pretty legend. 

Seven noble youths, who had embraced Christianity in the third 
century at Ephesus, were walled up in this cave, together with a 
faithful dog. After . resting there two centuries, the wall was re- 
moved — and here the legend divides : One version is, that they 
showed themselves to the people, and went on their way rejoicing ; 
the dog as jubilant as the rest. The Mohammedan version is, that, 
though their bodies were found, their spirits ascended to heaven, 
and that there they, as well as the good dog, yet live and nourish, 
in immortal youth ; the latter having for his society in paradise 
several other noble brutes, namely, the ram that Abraham sacri- 
ficed instead of his son Isaac, Baalam's remonstrating ass, the ass 
which the Saviour rode on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and 
the mare which Mohammed rode in his ascent to paradise. 

The Greek Christians, apparently not less superstitious than 
their brethren of Rome, have stuccoed the cave, and converted it 
into a chapel in honor of one of their modern saints. These man- 



ANCIENT RUINS. 619 

soleums of Ephesus were remarkable for being less spacious and 
more tasteful in architecture and ornament than those of Egypt 
and Palestine. No one of them is finished without the use of the 
curved line. 

Passing down and around this hill-cemetery, we confronted, on 
another eminence, the ruins of a vast and massive circular edifice. 
The wall is constructed of stones as large and well hewn as those 
in the wall of the wailing-place at Jerusalem, but heaps of small 
stones, bricks, and mortar, are mingled with them, which indicate 
either the frugal age of architecture, or at least the time when the 
Roman conquerors of Ephesus repaired the structure. Broken 
marble columns, architraves, and cornices, half covered by rubbish, 
prove the dignity of this edifice, and archaeologists have decided 
that it was the stadium of the city — a place used for popular and 
municipal assemblies. 

Winding our way around the base of the same eminence, we 
reached another ruin, far more beautiful, and, at the same time, 
unmistakable in its design. It is the ruin of an amphitheatre, 
small indeed, but constructed entirely of fine white marble. The 
basement-story, subdivided into halls, corridors, and chambers, is 
still perfect, and the semicircular rows of seats, rising toward the 
sides, would be comfortable for an audience even now. All the 
other parts of the little theatre, including the walls, columns, roof, 
and cornices, have fallen into the area, but the fragments of each 
part may easily be distinguished. An architect would find no dif- 
ficulty in rebuilding the theatre in its original form and propor- 
tions. But this is not the only place of popular amusement. Sepa- 
rated from this theatre only by an avenue of well-worn tessellated 
pavement, we came to the ruin of another amphitheatre four time's 
more spacious than the first, the model the same, the material the 
same, but more exquisitely wrought. The seats must have been 
sufficient to accommodate thirty thousand spectators. The outer 
door-ways remain unbroken. On their white-marble jambs, in 
pure ancient Greek, in letters perfectly legible, as if engraved yes- 
terday, are the police rules for the conduct of the theatre, and even 
the names of the dramatis personce. The vaulted chambers for the 



620 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 

confinement of the wild beasts, with arched passages leading from 
them into the arena, remain in perfect preservation. Taking our 
places on the upper tier, and looking down upon the space now 
covered with the confused mass of broken marble columns, walls, 
and statuary, we said to ourselves, This, if not the adjoining ruin, 
must be " the theatre into which the people rushed, with one ac- 
cord," when Paul alarmed Demetrius, the silversmith " which 
made silver shrines for Diana," together with the workmen of like 
occupation, by preaching that " they be no gods which are made 
with hands." 

And, since we find here the cages of the beasts and the arena, 
this surely is the place where Paul " fought with beasts at Ephe- 
sus." So it was from the beginning, and so it will be to the end. 
The proudest work of man's hands must perish and disappear from 
the earth, while no thought of God's can ever die. Though we 
cannot identify even the grave of one of the thousands to whom 
Paul preached the unity and spirituality of God, nor can we trace 
his remains to their final resting-place, yet his utterance of that 
divine truth already encircles the earth, and, if the soul of man be 
immortal, must survive the earth itself. 

Thus far we felt that we were treading on tolerably safe ground 
in exploring the history of Ephesus. Now, however, on looking 
off toward the sea, we saw, on the northern promontory, a cir- 
cular, castellated tower, which certainly is not as old as the Pyra- 
mids nor as new as Fortress Monroe. Inquiring what it was, we 
were answered that it was " St. Paul's prison." It is more prob- 
ably the ruin of a Saracenic (possibly a Roman) watch-tower. We 
next passed over an elevated plain designated, perhaps not without 
reason, as a field of gymnastic exercises similar to the Olympic 
games. 

Ephesus, so completely ruined, is now nearly lost sight of by 
travellers ; but an English gentleman, Mr. Wood, is here conduct- 
ing researches for the British Museum. He believes he has recently 
discovered, by unmistakable signs, the site of the temple dedicated 
to the worship " of the great goddess Diana, and of the image 
which fell down from Jupiter." Mr. Wood is said to have care- 



i 'ill i m 



l^£:^,^'^#^iiii 




THE ISLES OF GREECE. 621 

fully covered the columns which he has discovered, a service to his- 
tory for which he does not receive the thanks of the guides or the 
few tourists who penetrate to Ephesus. 

We left Ephesus under the beams of a crescent moon (though not 
as the Turks paint it, with Venus between its horns), and reached 
the hospitable home of our consul, Mr. Smithers, at midnight. 

It was the eve of St. John, and, late as the hour was, the en- 
tire population was in the streets, which were blazing with bon- 
fires. We are not surprised at this devout reverence paid to his 
memory, for we recall the fact that the apostolic missionaries, when 
they first came to Ephesus, found there Jews who practised the rite 
of baptism, but knew only the baptism of John. 

Grecian Archipelago, June 2ith. — Pleasant courtesies were ex- 
changed between Mr. Seward and the Turkish authorities at 
Smyrna. We parted here with our excellent friend Betts Bey, 
and reembarked, at four o'clock, on the steamer Apollo. 

June 25th. — " The isles of Greece " cannot be studied in their 
present sober and commonplace reality. A poetic atmosphere per- 
vades them, and they rise before you, not in their present real dul- 
ness and isolation, but in the life and glowing warmth in which 
they have been sung by Homer and Byron. 

What a pretty, white village is this of Tinos which we are pass- 
ing, with the hills behind it terraced to their summits with orange- 
orchards and vineyards ! Green little Delos, rising gracefully from 
the sea as we are gliding past, tempts us to go ashore and search 
among its hills for the remains of the Temple of Apollo, so famous 
for its sanctity. Syra has modern beauty that gives it a charm, 
needing nothing from antiquity to make it attractive. Little of 
Syra is ever read or heard of in the West, except that it is a mid- 
way station of exchange of products between the Greek ports. A 
town of five thousand dwellings is built on the face of a triple hill, 
the streets horizontal and parallel, one above another, so that, from 
the deck of our steamer in the harbor, we look into the door of every 
house in the city. Belonging to Greece, the island is inhabited ex- 
clusively by Christians, For the first time since we arrived in Japan 3 
47 



622 



EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



nine months ago, pagan temples and Moslem mosques have disap- 
peared, and Christianity confronts neither dissent nor opposition. 
Mr. Seward was received by the Greek governor and United 




A GKEEK OFFICIAL. 



States consul, and our party enjoyed a delightful promenade con- 
cert in the small public square, where it seemed as if all the inhabi- 
tants had come out for evening recreation, news, coffee, and ices. 
The Greek costumes of both sexes, more artistic than any in the 
world, imparted a poetic air to the scene. 

We embarked at seven o'clock, the last hour which the regula- 
tions allow for a stay in port. The steamer lingered unaccountably. 
As night came on, fires were seen creeping along the rocky terraces 
of the triple hill. These bonfires increasing for a time, at last 
gave way to a pillar of fire near the summit. There were rockets 
and balloons, and at length the beautiful Church of St. George, 



AN ILLUMINATION". 



623 



which crowns the highest and central conical hill, flashed forth in 
full blaze of red, white, and blue lights. We had been detained for 
an illumination in honor of Mr. Seward's visit. 

He has met here some of the survivors of the emissaries who 
visited the United States to secure aid for the Greek Revolution in 
1827. This illumination was a consequence of his sympathy with 
the Greek cause. Comparing notes with these revolutionists, they 
enjoyed the pleasing reflection that, although their sanguine hopes 
for the recovery of all Greece had not been accomplished, yet that 
a not inconsiderable part of ancient Greece, main-land as well as 
islands, had been restored to independence and Christianity ; and 
that the mass of the Greek people are enjoying a measure of 
practical civil and religious liberty unknown since the days of 
Pericles, and one which could not have been conceived by either 
Alcibiades or Demosthenes. 



-\'"- ' f ^- ^ . .1 




A CEOUP OF HEADS FEOM THE CE8NOLA COLLECTION. 



PART VI. 

EUROPE 



CHAPTER I. 

ATHENS AND CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Athens. — The Piraeus. — The Hymettus. — The Ilyssus. — Mr. Tuckerman. — Queen Olga. 
— Grecian Ruins compared with those of Egypt and Hindostan. — Modern Greece, 
the Mexico of Europe. — The Sea of Marmora. — Taking Constantinople by Surprise. 
—A Co7)tre- Temps.— All's Well that Ends Well.— The Sultan Abdul-Aziz.— A Busy 
Day. — Excursions. — Charms of Constantinople. — The Old Seraglio. — Fourth of July. 
— Robert College. — The Bosporus. — Turkish Women. — The New Palace. — Untimely 
Visit. — Kiamil Pacha. — Audience with the Sultan. — Departure from Constantinople. 

Athens, June 28th. — We have " done " Athens in thirty-six 
hours, because we have no more hours to do it in. Although we 
feel somewhat the worse for it, there is no sign that Athens has 
suffered. Our keen appetite for antiques and eccentricities of hu- 
man progress has been dulled. It seems to us now that, here in 
Greece, instead of continuing our progress down the stream of the 
old civilization of the world, we are beginning to ascend the tide 
of a new one. 

We arrived at six yesterday morning, at the Piraeus, the port 
of modern Athens, but no longer walled and fortified as in the 
days of Pericles. It was not without a feeling of awe, almost of 
reverence, that we recognized, in the mountain-chain which borders 
the plain we are entering, the ancient Hymettus, and the whole 
glorious though brief history of Athenian greatness rushed upon 
us as we looked upon the more distant range which outlines the 
Peloponnesus. Deviating from the direct road, we approached the 
city through one of those vast cemeteries by which historians tell 
us it was entirely surrounded outside of the ancient walls. Strange 
to say, the cemetery has a pleasing rather than a melancholy as- 



628 



EUROPE. 



pect. No gaping vaults, no revolting mummies, no tombs, no sar- 
cophagi, are here. All excavations have been filled up and lev- 
elled, while the monuments which covered them have been gath- 
ered and carefully arranged. The monuments, in no case colossal, 
consist of marble statuary, and tablets engraved and inscribed in 
alto-rilievo. The execution in all cases is exquisite, the design al- 
ways touching and simple. 

Modern Athens is a town of fifty thousand inhabitants. Al- 
though it retains and preserves most interesting and wonderful 
monuments of the past, it is nevertheless purely European, and has' 
put the ancient world of Africa and Asia out of sight. Its streets 
are of comfortable width, well paved ; its buildings, with few ex- 




A GREEK WOMAN. 



ceptions, are modern, but crowded too densely. We took lodgings 
at the Hotel d'Angleterre, at the foot of the beautiful gardens of 



BRIDGE AT ELEUSIS. 



629 



the Koyal Palace. The fields round Athens ai;e brown from a long 
drought, but the monotony is relieved by a wide belt of olive-trees 




BRIDGE AT BLET7SIS. 



which stretch behind the city, and in the valley quite to the foot of 
Hymettus. The cloudless atmosphere imparts to the mountains 
that deep-azure hue which enthusiastic writers call the " violet 
crown" of Athens. The Ilyssus, like most of the classic streams 
of Europe, is a disappointment to the American traveller. 



630 EUROPE. 

June 2Sth. — Mr. Tuckerman, the able and accomplished United 
States minister, being absent from Greece, had arranged with the 
ministry in regard to Mr. Seward's reception, and had left the 
legation in the care of the United States consul, charged with the 
duty of announcing Mr. Seward's arrival. The consul met us at 
•the Piraeus, and has assiduously attended us during our stay in 
Athens. On our return last night from an excursion to Eleusis, 
we found a note from the chamberlain appointing eleven o'clock 
this morning for an audience with Queen Olga in the absence of 
the king, who is on a visit to Copenhagen. 

The palace is entirely modern and European. The young queen 
was gracious ; she is intelligent, pleasing, and beautiful. Speaking 
English perfectly, she left nothing unsaid which she could have 
said of her consideration for Mr. Seward, or of appreciation of his 
visit to Greece. And she expressed herself as having no wish so 
near her heart as that of seeing the United States — a nation whom 
her father, the Grand-duke Constantine of Russia, had taught her 
to respect and admire. 

Grecian ruins, seen "so soon after our explorations of those of 
Egypt and Hindostan, suggest the reflection that in the early age 
of Egypt human labor and means of subsistence, as well as materials 
for building, were plentiful and cheap, while the edifices to be con- 
structed were only temples and tombs. At the same time, the gov- 
ernment was not merely absolute, but despotic. Art and science 
had not been taxed to discover the smallest amount of materials or 
labor with which an enduring structure could, be built. Under 
these circumstances, the Egyptian pyramids, temples, and tombs, 
were of great and even gigantic dimensions. The Phoenicians, the 
Jews, and the Greeks, corning later, found the necessity for econ- 
omy of labor and materials, while the greater independence of the 
people obliged the governments to practise frugality, and to perfect 
science adapted to that frugality. The Greeks, therefore, while 
they gathered their models from Egypt, reduced their designs from 
the colossal to the practical, and substituted, for massiveness, orna- 
ment and beauty. Moreover, architecture and the arts of design, 
in Egypt, were a priestly monopoly, and subject to exact regula- 



THE TEMPLE OF VICTORY. 



631 



tion — the people of Egypt had no share in them. In Greece, the 
arts passed over from the government to the people, and became a 
study, a pride, and a profit, in which all the citizens could share. 
As it is apparent that Egypt never perfected the Grecian work, so 
it is equally manifest that Greece could never have produced the 
Pyramids, Karnak, or the Tombs of the Kings. Each was the proper 




TIIE TEMPLE OF VICTORY, ATHENS. 



work of a distinct stage of human civilization. Absurd as was the 
mythology of ancient Greece, it was, nevertheless, a cheerful and 
hopeful religious system, while that of Egypt was a gloomy and 
fearful superstition. Egyptian architecture and arts produced, and 
were designed to produce, the impression of terror and awe ; they 
gave, therefore, no scope for pleasing lines of beauty, for delicate 



632 EUROPE. 

traces of art, or for tints and hues of coloring. Grecian architect- 
ure, on the contrary, was as joyous as the Greek mythology. 
How did it happen that the freedom and the power of ancient 
Greece were so transient ? 

It was due to the fact that Greece, being subdivided into small 
states and islands, mutually jealous of each other, proved incapable 
of maintaining one central, national authority adequate to pro- 
tection against dangers from without or security against revolu- 
tion within. Greece had a free, intellectual, and enlightened peo- 
ple. Their philosophers, orators, and statesmen, seem to have been 
conscious of this, for they studied less the glory and grandeur of 
the Greeks themselves than the universal advancement of man- 
kind. For this they have their reward. Whatever the moderns 
have, either of government, science, art, or literature, all confess 
that it is traceable to the Greeks. Even when we are extending the 
domain of science, and demanding names for newly-discovered sub- 
stances, powers, forces, and qualities, we turn unhesitatingly to the 
full and expansive Greek language for a new technology. How 
little the ancient Greeks thought that, when we should have ac- 
quired the power of compelling the lightning to transmit our 
thoughts, we should be obliged to borrow from them the name of 
the instrument of communication ! How little did they imagine 
that, when we should acquire the power to compel the sun to paint 
for us, we should resort to them for the name of the newly-invented 
instrument and art ! 

Modern Greece is the Mexico of Europe — new, experimental, 
and unreliable, requiring forbearance, patience, and protection ; 
but, having all these, its condition is hopeful. It has, at least, got 
rid of Turkish despotism and Mohammedan superstition. Greece 
will probably become greater, and its present monarchy may be 
regarded as what Lafayette proposed the government of Louis 
Philippe should be — a monarchy surrounded with republican insti- 
tutions, and an introduction to the republic itself. 

Constantinqpl-e, June 29th. — This morning we were in the Sea 
of Marmora, surrounded by beautiful islands, and at eleven o'clock 



A SINGULAR RECEPTION. 633 

we rounded the base of the Seven Towers and beheld St. Sophia's 
lofty dome, the old Seraglio, the new Imperial Palace, and, crossing 
the mouth of the Golden Horn, anchored in the Bosporus under 
the crowded, towering shore of Pera. 

We did what no invader could have done in the time of Belisa- 
rius, for we took Constantinople by surprise. Although Mr. Sew- 
ard came as an invited guest of the Sultan, and although the 
United States legation had corresponded with him in India and 
Egypt about the time of his coming, neither crescent nor stars and 
stripes from the shore answered the signal which waved from the 
mast-head of the Wien. What could it mean ? We lingered an 
hour on the deck. A mythical person presented himself, speaking 
very imperfect English, and informed us that apartments were, to 
his certain knowledge, provided for us by the Government at the 
Hotel d'Angleterre. This information coincided with the letter 
which Mr. Seward had received when in China from Blacque Bey, 
written by direction of the grand-vizier. Weary of the sea, and 
impatient under a cold shower of the first rain we had experienced 
since our arrival at Calcutta in March, we availed ourselves of the 
captain's kindness, and went ashore in his gig. Landing, and clam- 
bering over heaps of stones, we took shelter from the rain in an 
open shed which served as a cafe for the market-men who thronged 
the beach. Two rickety one-horse carriages were all that could be 
found in which to make our entrance. We secured both. Leaving 
one of them to the servants, we three passengers crowded ourselves 
into the other. We had scarcely commenced our ascent, when we 
collided with a timber-cart coming down the same steep, narrow 
road. Extricating ourselves, we took the sidewalk, and proceeded 
safely enough until the overtaxed horse gave out, and we com- 
pleted our journey on foot in the drizzling rain. 

We reached the Hotel d'Angleterre unexpected guests. The 
telegraph had announced that we would come to-morrow. But 
the keeper of the hotel would do his best ; he was sure he was to 
entertain us on behalf of the Porte, and he would endeavor to do 
it as well as possible. It soon turned out that the reception which 
had been arranged for Mr. Seward fell to those whom we had left 



634 EUROPE. 

behind. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed of the United 
States flag raised on the Wien, dispatched a guard of honor to the 
wharf. The guard met the servants in their calash, with the lug- 
gage on carts, winding their way to the imperial custom-house. 
The guard divided to the right and left, and, with due solemnity 
and respect, escorted Jenny Corell, Arthur Price, and William 
Freeman, to the entrance of the Hotel d'Angleterre. Half an 
hour afterward the grand-chamberlain, and the United States 
charge d'affaires, John P. Brown, and the United States marshal, 
Mr. Thompson, arrived, and explanations were duly made. The 
telegraph from Athens, announcing that we had sailed, was without 
date, and was not put on the wire until we were passing the Hel- 
lespont. The apology offered was made the more soothing for us 
by the statement of the lord-chamberlain that precisely the same 
mistake occurred on the arrival of the Empress Eugenie last year. 
The manner of the contre-temps was different in the two cases. In 
that of the empress, the grand-vizier with his war-steamer went 
out to meet the French imperial frigate on which she was coming. 
But, unfortunately, the two vessels passed each other unobserved, 
so that she was already at Constantinople while he was vainly look- 
ing for her in the Sea of Marmora. 

"All's well," however, "that ends well!" The Turkish Gov- 
ernment had subsequently designated another, and as they thought 
a finer hotel. But, Mr. Seward being content with the Hotel 
d'Angleterre, especially after learning that our host was the " Mys- 
seri " of Kinglake's " Eothen," we remain here. 

The highest effect of Constantinople is produced by its tout en- 
semble. It has many different and noble aspects from various stand- 
points, but in every case the whole is seen at once, and it is this 
whole that constitutes the marvellous beauty of the city. 

June 30th. — Why is it that the strongest curiosity of travellers, 
even of republican travellers more than others, is to see princes % 
Whatever the reacon may be, this is not only a secret of the art of 
history, but also of the dramatic art. Hamlet and Lear and Richard 
are all the more interesting for being princes.. 



SEEING THE SULTAN. 



635 



Although we had no reason to suppose that royalty here, more 
than elsewhere, would conceal its visage from us, yet an opportunity 
to see the Sultan Abdul- Aziz in a pageant to-day, and perhaps on 
no other day, was not, at least in the judgment of the younger 
portion of our party, to be lost. Successor of the caliphs, the 
Sultan is the spiritual as well as temporal head of Islam. In this 
character he goes in public procession from his palace at twelve 
o'clock every Friday, either on horseback or in a barge, to offer 
prayers for the faithful in one of the principal mosques. This cus- 
tom is one of very ancient standing, and is mentioned by travellers 
among the Turks as early as the fifteenth century, though it is prob- 
ably even much older than that. It affords an opportunity of see- 
ing the Sultan of which nearly all strangers avail themselves. We 
found two imperial carriages awaiting us at the door of our hotel, 
and in them, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Brown, we were driven 
into the street before the gate of the imperial residence. Our party 




ALBANIAN COSTUME. 



was not recognized among the many curious strangers whose car- 
riages thronged the way, to witness the pageant, and we were 
nearly an hour in finding a suitable stand. The palace clock had 



48 



630 EUROPE. 

been set back, and, an hour and a half after high noon struck the 
equivalent of twelve in Turkish time, Abdul-Aziz issued from the 
gate, dressed in the magnificent costume which is equally the uni- 
form of the civil and military service of Turkey. He was mounted 
on a noble white Arabian steed, caparisoned in gold and velvet. 
.A squadron of cavalry, with a sonorous flourish of trumpets, opened 
the way, and another covered the rear. His majesty was attended 
by all the ministers of the Porte on horseback, and surrounded by 
a guard of Albanian officers on foot. These wore jackets, caps, and 
gaiters, of maroon-velvet and gold, and full, spotless white skirts 
reaching the knee — said to be the most exquisite costume in the 
world. Their shining, silver cimeters and pistols are worn in a 
broad sash. The Sultan is a stout, well-formed man, forty-seven 
years old, with a pleasing and amiable though not impressive coun- 
tenance. His hair is slightly gray, and he is said to dislike the 
national fez, which he wears very small. He rides remarkably well, 
like a soldier accustomed to the saddle. His bland smile when 
passing our carriages, which indeed he might have known by the 
imperial livery to be his own, indicated to Mr. Brown that he had 
the honor of being personally recognized, although he failed in the 
attempt to flatter Mr. Seward with the belief that he shared in that 
honor. 

Being assured that the presence of Christians at the official ser- 
vices of the mosque would be popularly regarded as intrusive by the 
Moslems, it only remained for us to leave the ground as soon as 
the imperial pageant had passed. We observed that not only the 
ministers, but the military officers, and even our excellent friend 
Mr. Brown, betrayed sentiments of awe and reverence during the 
progress ; while, on the other hand, the people " of the baser sort," 
Turks as they are, manifested neither sympathy with the proces- 
sion, nor homage for the sovereign, but were as free and indifferent 
in their demeanor as a crowd of spectators at a military parade in 
the United States. 

July 1st. — Mr. Seward has had a busy day. He has exchanged 
visits with Server Pacha, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and acting 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 637 

grand-vizier, in the place of Ali Pacha, who, long resisting, has at 
last succumbed under an illness which it is feared will be fatal ; also 
with Kiamil Pacha, president of the Council of State ; and the Min- 
isters of Justice and Commerce, Cabruli Pacha and Mounetaz 
Effendi. He was received by these functionaries at their several 
offices in the Divan, and entertained there with very agreeable con- 
versation, and the customary offerings of coffee and chibouque. The 
conversation did not go, however, beyond expressions compliment- 
ary to Mr. Seward, and highly appreciative of the United States. 
lie thought that Turkish politics, so deeply interwoven with those 
of European powers, are probably reserved by the ministers for the 
treatment of the great statesman, Ali Pacha. 

The Divan is a large and spacious European structure, superior 
to any public edifice of the same sort here, or to any that we have 
seen throughout the East, though very inferior to the department 
buildings at Washington. 

By the courtesy of the Government, the necessary permits for 
free access to the city and all its institutions and amusements were 
sent to us this morning. It was amusing to see the care that was 
taken in filling up the dates and inserting the names in these 
printed forms ; a banker could hardly practise more care in draw- 
ing bills of exchange to guard against perversion or counterfeiting. 
We understand that permits to view the mosques, palaces, and mu- 
seums here, are usually charged with a fee as a perquisite. 

We have made several excursions around the city. The survey 
from without, at whatever point, produces the same impression, 
that of unmixed admiration. It has been with us a profound study 
to determine what it is that constitutes the peculiar and surpassing 
effect of Constantinople as a great and magnificent seat of com- 
merce and empire. Nature has invested the site with such advan- 
tages in this respect as no other city enjoys. It is an isthmus, and 
a narrow one at that, with lofty and towering but graceful eleva- 
tions, which divide two great seas, the Mediterranean and the 
Enxine, and two great continents, Europe and Asia. The seas 
clasp hands between the continents, which smile upon each other 
across the narrow strait of the fathomless, blue-rolling Bosporus. 



638 EUROPE. 

What would otherwise be a topographical monotony is broken by 
the broad, deep, and winding channel of the Golden Horn, which 
breaks the European coast into two not unequal parts, with banks 
on either side as green and gently sloping as those of the Bospo- 
rus. Constantinople, not diminutive nor contracted, covers plain, 
valley, and hill, on either shore, as far as the eye can reach, with a 
populous, majestic city. You take no notice of the political, mu- 
nicipal, or geographical divisions of the city : though the portion 
south of the Horn and west of the Bosporus is designated as the 
ancient Byzantium, now Stamboul proper ; and the portion of the 
city north of it and west of the Bosporus as Pera ; and the por- 
tion which occupies the eastern bank is known as Scutari, the 
ancient Chrysopolis — yet Stamboul, Pera, and Scutari, with what- 
ever other municipalities or suburbs there may be, are merged 
altogether, and make the one, great, noble city of Constantinople. 
From whatever new point of view you look at the panorama, you 
feel not the distant but the immediate presence of the two oceans 
and of the two continents. Boston merely encircles a bay; New 
York graces an island between two rivers ; London crowds both level 
banks of a tame and turbid river ; Paris merely clusters, like Borne, 
upon the banks of a narrow, tideless stream ; Amsterdam shuts out 
the sea by dikes, making for itself an artificial site ; even Venice, 
the " Queen of the Adriatic," takes refuge from it in a shallow, 
marshy bay ; while Naples is content with occupying an amphithe- 
atre, nobly beautiful indeed, but still a circular mountain-shore. 
But Constantinople has the deep, great sea flowing, not only near 
it but through it. The sea, elsewhere, is a thing of dread — the sea, 
at Constantinople, is a highway of commerce, and a pleasure-lake. 
Although dividing the city, it is not forced out by wharves, docks, 
or piers, on either side. You may pass from the steamship to 
your dwelling-place on the greensward of your garden ; or you 
may enter your frail caique and float in safety on the deep waters, 
which at the same time are bearing by the most majestic ships that 
man can build. So you may, from the same pleasure-boat, land on 
either green shore of the Bosporus at the water's edge, or wind 
your way among the fleets riding at anchor in the Golden Horn. 



AN ANCIENT PILLAR. 



639 



It is this peaceful contact of two continents, with the truce be- 
tween an old and a new civilization in the Bosporus, and at the 
same time a control of two seas, both relieved of their terrors, 
while retaining always their placid beauty, that makes Constanti- 
nople the most delightful place in the world. One other element 
enters into the picture — the streets of Constantinople are narrow, 




ANCIENT PILLAR AT CONSTANTINOPLE 



most of the dwellings and shops are cheap and frail, yet these 
blemishes are overlooked in the view of the ever-admired Oriental 



640 



EUROPE. 



city, witli the gleaming towers, domes, and minarets, of its thou- 
sand palaces and mosques, and a gorgeous golden sunlight con- 







FOUNTAIN OF THE SERAGLIO. 



trasting with the sparkling blue sea, the dark cypress-groves of 
Scutari, and, in the distance, the bright islands of the Marmora, 
and the snowy peak of Olympus. It is the harmony of each part 
with the whole which constitutes the nameless beauty of the scene. 
It is the presence, not of waters diminutive as rivers, nor of emi- 
nences diminutive as hills, but of seas and mountains — not of the 
seas and mountains of one country, but of the seas and mountains 
of two vast and diverse continents. 

July 3d. — The palace of Solyman the Magnificent, seated so 
gracefully on the promontory which divides the Golden Horn from 
the Bosporus, was the chief court residence of the Sultan until 
seventy or eighty years ago. Now, under the name of the " Old 
Seraglio," this great pile has been converted into a storehouse, in 
which are deposited the regalia, ornaments, plate, and objects of 
vertu, gathered by the crown since the time of the caliphs. The 



FOURTH OF JULY. 641 

collection is curious. There are crowns, thrones, urns, vases, table 
furniture and ornaments, plate, clocks, watches, jewelry, and pre- 
cious stones, all of costliest material and most elaborate workman- 
ship, placed in cases, apparently without arrangement or desig- 
nation of date or history — a treasure which Midas might covet, 
although it is practically useless. It was only as an act of special 
grace that we were admitted to the alcoves which contained the 
rich library and manuscripts belonging to the Government. They 
are watched with the utmost care, since the Government thinks it 
has had reason to believe that some foreign states have tried by 
indirect means to abstract some of them. 

July 4th. — Although the celebration of our national indepen- 
dence has come to be regarded as a commonplace affair at home, it 
is an enjoyment which citizens of the United States cannot forego 
without reluctance when abroad. 

"We repaired this morning, in accordance with an invitation, to 
Robert College, an American university for the education of Turk- 
ish youths, founded by the liberality of Christopher R. Robert, of 
New York. Twelve years ago the Turkish Government conceded 
the site, which is the most commanding one on the Bosporus. 
But Mussulman jealousies caused delay in confirming the conces- 
sion. A long and sometimes unpleasant discussion, which occurred 
on the subject between the two Governments, was happily brought 
to an end during the closing year of Mr. Seward's official term in 
the Department of State. 

The firman having been issued, two years sufficed for building 
an edifice adequate to the accommodation of one hundred and 
fifty students. Dr. Hamlin, who has had sole charge of the enter- 
prise, is president, with a faculty of eleven professors, and already 
there are one hundred and twenty-five students. The Fourth of 
July was chosen by President Hamlin to commemorate the com- 
pletion of this important work with due acknowledgments to the 
Government of the United States and the Government of Turkey 
for their favor and patronage. Mr. Seward's arrival at this junc- 
ture and Blacque Bey's presence at Constantinople were regarded 



£42 EUROPE. 

as fortunate coincidences of the celebration. After a long drive by 
the side of the Bosporus and over its eminences, we espied the 
United States flag waving from the college. The president, faculty, 
and students, with the United States citizens residing at Constan- 
tinople, received Mr. Seward, and, having been severally presented 
to him on the veranda, attended him in procession to the recep- 
tion-hall. A dinner, provided by the American residents, was 
served — the first public entertainment of the kind ever known on 
the shores of the Bosporus. And so the ivy-crowned, castellated 
towers near by, which, in 1453, forty years before the discovery of 
America, poured forth the invading army who subverted Chris- 
tianity in the empire and established Moslem despotism in Stam- 
boul, now were witnesses of the celebration of an event which is a 
sure guarantee of religious as well as political regeneration of so- 
ciety throughout the world. 

Dr. Hamlin presided at one of the two tables, which was deco- 
rated with the stars and stripes ; while Blacque Bey, by the leave 
and with the instruction of the Divan, presided at the other under 
a canopy formed by the crescent flag of the Turkish Empire. The 
guests were Americans, with their families ; Turks, of course, with- 
out theirs ; and the body of students, among whom were repre- 
sentatives from every province in the empire, as well as from Per- 
sia, Greece, and the islands of the Levant. 

Dr. Plamlin closed a spirited oration with congratulations to 
Mr. Seward on his arrival in Constantinople, and thanks for the 
interest in the college which he had manifested. Mr. Seward an- 
swered in a manner which seemed to awaken deep sensibility 
among his own countrymen, while the natives of the East listened 
with surprise and pleasure to a free exercise of speech for the first 
time in their lives. 

Blacque Bey and Mr. Brown followed with speeches which were 
pleasing and appropriate in their allusions to Mr. Seward, Robert 
College, and the relations between Turkey and the United States. 
When the exercises closed, the assemblage attended Mr. Seward 
to his carriage, and parted from him with cheers for himself, for 
the Union, for the Turkish Empire, and for Robert College. 



THE BOSPORUS. 



643 



July 5th. — The Minister of the Navy, Mahmoud Pacha, sent a 
steamer this morning for the excursion on the Bosporus, indispen- 
sable to a true knowledge of Constantinople. We displayed the 
United States flag by the side of the red banner of the Turks. 

The Bosporus is a channel, which, taking no note of municipal 
divisions, traverses the entire length of the capital ; but such a 
channel as no human hands could make. While it is tideless, it 




TURKISH WOMAN IN STREET DRESS. 



nevertheless has the breadth of the East River at New York, and 
a depth practically unfathomable. Its waters, from the Black Sea 
to the Sea of Marmora, have a current averaging two or three miles 
an hour, but increased at some points to four miles by jutting 
promontories or converging shores. The city and suburbs are 
spread, though not equally, over the two lofty and gently-rising 
banks, and a hostile ship-of-war moving through the Golden Horn 



644: EUROPE. 

and the Bosporus could shell and destroy not only every warehouse 
on the bank, but every palace, mosque, and villa, in the entire city. 
The Government has a high appreciation of the Bosporus as an or- 
nament of the capital. It carefully prohibits the use of its shores 
for offensive trades, avocations, or manufactories, and they are, con- 
sequently, embellished with the finest public institutions, palaces, 
and villas. Every man of the wealthier class, besides his winter 
dwelling in Stamboul, Pera, or Scutari, has his villa and wherry on 
the verdant bank of the Bosporus, and steps from his porch to his 
barge, while his garden hangs on the hill-side. All the foreign 
ministers and consuls have their villas here, and, in ascending the 
Bosporus, we received the salute of many national flags. 

In Japan all the women whom the traveller sees, aside from the 
music-girls, are repulsive. In China the women seen are painted 
and distorted ; in India, woman seems to have no existence at all ; 
in Egypt and Syria, if she appears in public, she is hideously veiled. 
Until lately, it was so in Constantinople. We have met to-day 
many groups of Circassian women listlessly reclining in their gayly- 
cushioned, canopied caiques, on the Bosporus, as we have met 
them before in our walks and drives on shore. They seem greatly 
to enjoy this freedom, and are often accompanied by musicians 
under the surveillance of the inevitable eunuchs. These women 
are richly dressed, in habits of brightly-colored silk which approxi- 
mate to the European costume, and their thin white veils, which 
cover their faces, leave exposed, with bewitching effect, eyes and 
eyebrows, the latter delicately painted. We have passed a thou- 
sand harems on our voyage to-day, and if any woman looked upon 
us she would only have done so through the close lattice of her 
balcony. Verily, the Mohammedan is a " comfortable doctrine " 
for the stronger sex. For, while women are thus carefully secluded, 
every piazza and window on either side of the Bosporus is filled 
with Turks in groups, in pairs, and single, sitting cross-legged or 
lounging on divans, surveying the passers-by through fumes of 
chibouque or hookah, and over uncounted glasses of sherbet. 

After this excursion we can no longer wonder at the cautious 
jealousy with which. the Ottoman Porte insists upon holding the 



A TURKISH GIEL. 



645 



Bosporus as a closed sea. Unlike any other strait of the world, 
the Bosporus, with its termini in the Sea of Marmora and the 
Black Sea, would open to all nations, rivals or enemies as well as 




TURKISH GIEL IN A HAREM. 



friends, a navigation not only through the very heart of the capital, 
but through the very heart of the empire. 

The Bosporus, therefore/ while it is an ornament, is a constant 
peril, and a constraint upon the national independence. Nor is it 
to be supposed that the Ottoman Government fails to understand 
that its political and religious institutions, customs, and manners, 
encounter the prejudices of all the Christian nations, and that the 
chief security for peace with each lies in the ineradicable ambitions 
of the great states of Europe. 

The banks of the Bosporus are not without the appearance of 
military defences, which, however, seem M'ellnigh worn to pieces 



Q±6 EUROPE. 

with age. The shores, as you approacli the Black Sea, present a 
succession of barracks and encampments well filled with soldiers. 
The chief protection of the passage consists of a navy of twenty 
iron-clad steam-frigates, all of which are kept constantly in ■ com- 
mission. Besides these the Government has in its employ a very 
intelligent American engineer of the late Confederate Army of the 
United States, who is providing the harbor at all points with tor- 
pedoes. By-the-way, the occasion of our first acquaintance with 
this gentleman has afforded us much amusement. While we were 
waiting at the navy-yard this morning, for our steamer, and Mr. 
Seward was in conversation with the admiral in command, an 
officer in Turkish uniform stood near whom we recognized as an 
American, despite his fez and laced coat. Approaching, at Mr. 
Seward's request, the officer said that he was pleased to have an 
introduction to him, but had not ventured to pay his respects to 
him on account of political associations at home. He remarked 
that the last time he had had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Seward 
was when he himself was attending the Confederate " peace com- 
missioners," Hunter, Stephens, and Campbell, in the conference at 
Hampton Roads, with President Lincoln and his Secretary of State. 
Mr. Seward laughingly said that he inferred, from the captain's 
present employment, that he might have been engaged in blowing 
up the United States commissary storehouse at City Point. The 
handsome Southerner owned to the " soft impeachment," but he 
protested that he had nothing to do with the shelling, from " How- 
lett House Battery," of the River Queen, which was conveying 
Mr. Seward, with General Grant and General Butler, to the signal- 
tower and Dutch Gap Canal. 

July 5th. — Shooting almost directly across the Bosporus, we en- 
tered a paved court just above the level of the sea, and from it the 
majestic gate of another palace. This edifice has just now been 
finished, and has not yet been occupied. It is known as the "New 
Palace." The Turkish architect, educated in Europe, attended us, 
and furnished us with photographs of every part of the building. 
The style is a successful combination of the Greek with the ara- 



THE TURKISH CABINET. 647 

besque architecture and ornamentation of the Alhambra. We 
doubt if there is even in Europe a palatial residence so extensive 
and magnificent. Like the marble court of the Great Mogul, with 
its " peacock throne " and roof of silver, this new palace cannot 
fail to impress the visitor with a sense of the despotic authority and 
unrestrained luxury of its possessor. A fine feature of the New 
Palace is its immense, central, circular audience-chamber, which is 
so arranged that the occupant, looking through corridors at right 
angles with each other, has an outer prospect on each of the four 
sides of the palace, and yet the arrangement is such that these 
corridors neither cut off access to any of the chambers, drawing- 
rooms, or other apartments, nor in the least interfere with their 
proper use. After here partaking of a sumptuous breakfast, we 
resumed our yacht, and returned to the hotel. 

July 8th. — Mr. Seward returned to-day the visits of the several 
members of the cabinet. They seemed to set a high value on their 
iron-clad and torpedo defences, and expressed much desire that Mr. 
Seward should see them. In their conversation on foreign topics, 
they spoke of France and England as the remotest points in their 
political horizon, and of the United States as being inaccessible 
beyond it. The United States to them are simply a wonder ; they 
wish to know by what process it was that a nation so new had 
grown to such a stature. Just beginning, as they are, to think of 
building railroads, they are amazed when told that the United 
States have already built fifty-five thousand miles of railroad, and 
that they add annually five thousand more. 

Mr. Seward found here, as throughout the East, a complef e con- 
viction on the part of the cabinet that, whatever else the United 
States can do, they are incapable of practising injustice toward 
foreign nations. 

July \0th. — Soon after we arrived here, Mr. Seward was in- 
formed that he would be received by the Sultan on a day to be 
appointed, and that on another day he would be entertained by 

Kiamil Pacha, president of the Council of State. On Saturday, 
49 



648 EUROPE. 

the 8th, came the invitation to breakfast with Kiamil Pacha at 
eleven o'clock to-day at his palace high up the Bosporus. It was 
announced that Mr. Seward, with a party of gentlemen, would be 
entertained by Kianiil Pacha, and that the ladies would be similarly 
entertained in the harem. The invitation was, of course, accepted. 
On Sunday, at noon, came Mr. Brown, our charge d'affaires, bearing 
a communication from the Sultan, inviting Mr. Seward to an au- 
dience at his palace, down the Bosporus, at two o'clock to-day. It 
was seen at once that the two appointments might conflict, but it is 
the usage of courts that a sovereign's request is imperative ; and so 
the Sultan's invitation was also accepted, but under the expectation 
that Kiamil Pacha's would be withdrawn. This, however, did uot 
happen ; so there seemed nothing left for us to-day but to endeavor 
to fulfil both engagements. The ladies, having learned at Cairo 
the customs of the harem, had prepared toilets which they hoped 
would make them presentable at the breakfast, Kiamil Pacha being 
one of the wealthiest men of the empire, and now, during the re- 
tirement of Ali Pacha, prime-minister, and his wife being the sister 
of the Khedive of Egypt. Taking the well-manned, graceful 
caique of the United States legation, accompanied by Blacque Bey 
with Mr. and Mrs. Brown, at ten o'clock, and rowing hard against 
the current, we arrived at the grand staircase of the villa of Kiamil 
Pacha at eleven o'clock. On entering the grand salon, it was a sur- 
prise that neither Kiamil Pacha, nor any other pacha, nor eftendi, 
nor any other person, appeared to receive us. Blacque Bey went 
to explore, and returned, telling us that Kiamil Pacha was wait- 
ing in an adjoining apartment to conduct the ladies to the harem. 
They ollowed Blacque Bey through a large antechamber, and then 
through a long corridor, at the foot of which he presented them to 
Kiamil Pacha, a man about sixty, of commanding presence, with 
piercing black eyes, white hair, and long, pointed beard and mus- 
tache. He was dressed in a flowing dressing-gown of rich white 
silk, and yellow Turkish slippers. He apologized for being en des- 
habille, which, indeed, seemed to us rather extraordinary. He now 
called a deformed Nubian, and, after some explanations in Turkish, 
unintelligible to us, this black custodian hobbled away, and re- 



A COOL RECEPTION. 640 

turned with two white slave-girls. New explanations having been 
given to the slaves, they in their turn disappeared for a time, and 
then came back with two more. Kiamil Pacha now retired. The 
Nubian led the way, and the ladies, attended by the four slave- 
women, were ushered into a large, pleasant room, furnished in the 
Oriental manner — that is, with luxurious divans along its sides, and 
low, downy cushions of yellow damask ; bright Persian rugs on 
the floor, lace curtains at the windows, and a table in the centre of 
the room, covered with porcelain and glass vases and other orna- 
ments, but no books, music, pictures, or statuary, were to be seen. 
Fifteen minutes had elapsed when a lady entered, accompanied by 
six slave-girls. She was quite petite, perhaps forty-five years old, 
and was dressed in a simple white-muslin gown, with a single band 
of blue tulle on her head, fastened with an enormous sapphire, the 
only ornament she wore. Acknowledging the presence of her 
guests only by a distant inclination of the head, she seated herself 
on a divan, drawing her slippered feet under her, and embracing 
her white poodle-dog. She spoke not, and seemed absorbed in 
scanning, with no happy expression, the elaborate toilets of her 
morning visitors. They, of course, said nothing, for the lady- 
princess had not condescended to announce herself, or to be an- 
nounced by eunuch or slave. Mrs. Brown speaks Turkish fluently, 
but her attempts to win the hostess into conversation were fruitless, 
and there was "silence" in the harem for half the time that St. 
John at Patmos marked the period of " silence in heaven." But it 
was an ominous silence. The princess then proceeded to interro- 
gate her Occidental visitors after the fashion of the Orient : " How 
old are you ? " " Have you any brothers or sisters ? " " How 
many ? " " How old are they ? " " Where do you come from ? " 
Then, with great surprise : " Why do you come so far from home ; 
how can you fatigue yourselves so much % " " Why do you not 
stop and rest?" And, finally, as if giving utterance to the dis- 
pleasure too long suppressed : " Why did you come here in such a 
hurry this morning, and give us no time to dress ? " 

This conversation was only interrupted by puffs of smoke from 
cigarettes, which were successively served to her from a jewelled 



650 EUEOPE. 

case by a Circassian slave-girl. Encouraged by her freedom, the 
visitors essayed speech in their turn. They said, " "We understood 
that we had the honor of being expected here this morning ; " to 
which the princess replied, "I know nothing about it." The 
ladies expressed their regret, but said the gentlemen must have 
made some mistake. She again replied, " I know nothing about 
it." Turning this extraordinary conversation, the visitors asked : 

" How do you amuse yourself? " 

" I look at the Bosporus, and smoke." 

" What is the name of your pretty dog ? " 

" lie has no name." 

" How do you call him ? " 

" I say, ' Dog.' " 

Chibouques, coffee, and sweetmeats, being now served, conver- 
sation ended, and the ladies were invited to examine the furniture 
and ornaments around them. During this time two other Turkish 
ladies entered and joined the princess on the divan, while the 
number of slave-girls increased to fifty — many of them very pretty 
and interesting, by their gentle ways. The princess commanded 
one of the girls to sing. She seated herself on the floor and exe- 
cuted a plaintive recitative, accompanying herself with a lute, the 
strings of which she struck with a tortoise-shell wand. It was 
whispered to the visitors that the two Turkish ladies were guests 
of the Princess Kiamil ; and when, after what seemed an hour, 
Kiamil Pacha was heard approaching the apartment, they hid 
themselves behind the curtains with some confusion and precipi- 
tation. The princess now rose and extended her beautiful little 
hands to her guests, to be kissed, and the foreign ladies took their 
leave, and, joining Kiamil Pacha, now completely arrayed in his 
official dress, returned with him to the salon, where they found Mr. 
Seward and the other gentlemen awaiting them. 

During the absence of the ladies, Kiamil Pacha had explained 
to Mr. Seward the contre-temjps which had occurred. Server Pa- 
cha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on receiving the Sultan's 
command that Mr. Seward should be presented to-day, had as- 
sumed that that gentleman would be unable to keep his engage- 



A TURKISH BREAKFAST. 651 

ment for the morning with Kiamil Pacha, and had given notice to 
Kiamil Pacha to that effect, out had omitted to inform Mr. Seward. 
So it turned out that while, with sharpened appetites and pressed 
for time, we were wondering why we had no breakfast, Kiamil Pa- 
cha and his wife were equally wondering that we had come there 
for one. A breakfast did come, however. In the acting-premier's 
palace, Asiatic forms and customs are confined to the harem. He 
vigorously extemporized a party, consisting of three European 
ministers and several secretaries. The entertainment was served 
in a spacious room gorgeously furnished, the windows of which 
open on- apparently illimitable gardens, fountains, and grottos. 
The conversation was free and spirited, and was chiefly on Euro- 
pean public questions, always with kind and appreciative allusions 
to the United States. Once it took the turn of converting English 
and Spanish proverbs into Oriental forms and idioms, which exag- 
gerate compliments, with a decided loss of terseness of expression. 

Kiamil Pacha was vivacious and courteous. He asked Mr. 
Seward what salary he received as Secretary of State. Mr. Sew- 
ard having answered eight thousand dollars, in coin or currency, 
as the case might be, the announcement of a sum so small was re- 
ceived with laughter and surprise. He then ventured to ask Kia- 
mil Pacha, not what his salary as head of the ministry is, but what 
are his official expenses. The minister answered, giving a sum in 
piasters which exceeds our power of arithmetical expression, but 
which is the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars per month. Mr. 
Seward rejoined that old countries are the ones for ministers of 
state, bishops, and muftis. 

The breakfast was served d la fourchette, and consisted of sev- 
eral delicious courses of French and native dishes, which were cut 
off in the midst by an abrupt call for the pillau, the Turkish native 
dish which invariably crowns and ends a feast. 

At half-past one, Mr. Seward, attended by Blacque Bey and 
Mr. Brown, landed at the wharf of the Imperial Palace. After 
waiting, in the office of a secretary, until the appointed hour, they 
proceeded, through the garden in front of the palace, to the grand 
entrance. Here Blacque Bey turned away, and the secretary con- 



652 EUROPE. 

ducted Mr. Seward and Mr. Brown through a long series of ante- 
chambers until they reached a small apartment plainly furnished. 
The Sultan was seen standing near the centre oi it. The secretary 
obsequiously kneeled, and remained in that position, Mr. Seward 
and Mr. Brown standing. Without making or waiting for a salu- 
tation, the Sultan pointed to chairs and invited the guests to sit ; 
then, drawing another chair, he sat down at Mr. Seward's side. 
The secretary now rose to assume the office of interpreter. His 
Majesty made the usual inquiries concerning Mr. Seward's health, 
the time he had been abroad, and the countries in which he had 
travelled. He made no allusion to India or Egypt, but asked many 
curious questions concerning Japan and China — their condition, 
political state, and prospects. Then he expressed much gratifica- 
tion with Mr. Seward's visit to Turkey, and a hope that his stay in 
Constantinople had been made comfortable and agreeable to him. 
Mr. Seward thanked him for the marks of consideration with which 
he had been honored from the time of his arrival in the Turkish 
dominions, and for the hospitality and courtesy of which he had 
been the recipient at the capital. 

The Sultan replied that these attentions were justly due to him, 
as an eminent man of a great nation. 

Mr. Seward said that " the late civil and severe war in the Uni- 
ted States had tried the forbearance and fidelity of foreign friends 
and allies ; that Turkey had been first and foremost of all in that 
great trial, and that her faithful friendship was appreciated by his 
Government and countrymen." 

The Sultan said : " It is the desire of Turkey to be at peace with 
all the Western nations, and she takes pleasure in acknowledging 
the prosperity, greatness, and increasing influence of the United 
States, which has always been a just nation." The Sultan con- 
tinued these remarks, saying that Turkey is behind Western na- 
tions in social progress, but that he hoped Mr. Seward had discov- 
ered, since coming here, that he (the Sultan) is making decisive 
efforts to advance the country in that direction. 

Mr. Seward said : (i I need not have come here to see this, but 
I am grateful, since I have come, to find my previous information 



A SEA-SICK SULTAN. 653 

confirmed. You have established law and order, with entire lib- 
erty of conscience, throughout the empire. I have seen two rail- 
roads, and travelled on them. I see new roads and improvements 
going on everywhere in Constantinople." 

Mr. Seward's assurances of Blacque Bey's success in conducting 
very difficult and delicate aifairs at Washington evidently gave 
the Sultan much satisfaction. 

His Majesty spoke with so much interest concerning our coun- 
try, that Mr. Seward asked whether, in case he should again go to 
the "West, he would not think it worth his while to extend his jour- 
ney to the United States. 

The Sultan, shaking his head, answered with a smile, that the 
German Ocean made him so sick, that he determined never to go 
to sea again. 

Mr. Seward replied, " The Atlantic is certainly not so gentle as 
some of the seas, but the German Ocean is the worst of them all." 

The Sultan showed an accurate knowledge of Mr. Seward's 
occupations in the capital from the moment of his arrival, and drew 
from him, by polite interrogatories, the impressions he had received 
concerning the iron-clads, arsenals, navy-yards, barracks, hospitals, 
and especially the new palace, which we visited yesterday. At 
times, when a pause occurred, the Sultan, turning his eyes toward 
the Bosporus, would call up some new topic, and so the audience 
was protracted for an hour. It closed with expressions of good 
wishes for Mr. Seward's health, and the safe and happy prosecution 
of his voyage, which is to be resumed to-morrow. 

Black Sea, July 11th. — William J. McAlpine, a distinguished 
American engineer, and an old friend, with his family, met us at 
Constantinople, and is accompanying us on our voyage as far as 
Orsova, on the Danube. Our last view of Constantinople was from 
the deck of an Australian Lloyd's steamer on the Bosporus. 

We might count the number of flags which waved us farewell 
from the balconies of Robert College, but not the number of boyish 
voices which greeted us with parting cheers. 



CHAPTER II. 

HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA. 

On the Danube. — Varna.— Rustchuk. — Wallachia.— German Travellers. — What shall 
we say of Turkey '—Reflections on the Future of the Turks. — Orsova. — The Iron 
Gate. — Hungarian Loyalty. — Buda-Pesth. — Contrast of European and Asiatic Civil- 
ization.— The People of Pesth.— The Bridge of Buda.— The Buildings of Buda.— 
The History of Hungary. — The Danube.— Vienna. — John Jay.— Count Von Beust. — 
Politics of Austria. 

On the Damibe, July 12th. — We awoke this morning in the 
harbor of Yarna, one of the seaports of Turkey in Europe, and the 
capital of Roumelia. The town acquired great importance from 
being the principal scene of Omar Pacha's military and naval 
operations in the Crimean War. It has since that time, however, 
acquired greater importance of another kind. The Danube, ap- 
proaching the Black Sea, takes a northeasterly direction, dividing its 
flood into three channels. The mouths of these channels are much 
obstructed, while their navigation is long and tortuous. British 
capitalists have supplied the means with which a railroad has been 
constructed from Yarna, one hundred and fifty miles long, which 
intercepts the Danube at Rustchuk. This railroad, reducing the 
journey from Yienna to Constantinople four hundred miles, already 
divides the freight traffic with the circuitous Danubian route, while 
it takes the entire passenger-trade. 

The United States consul, the British consul, and several Euro- 
pean and American missionaries, were gathered at the wharf at 
Rustchuk to welcome Mr. Seward. 

The Danube, now carrying a high flood, spreads here over a 



PROSPECTS OF TURKEY. 055 

mile in width, with high but not mountainous banks. The town 
contains a population of twenty-five thousand, and has the appear- 
ance of much activity. It presents less an Oriental than a Eu- 
ropean aspect. Gast-hailse?', bier-hailser, not to speak of ships, 
manufactories, and shops, indicate a large dominating German 
element. Minarets are less frequent, and spires of Christian 
churches take their place. 

On the opposite bank lies the principality of Wallachia, now, 
like Bulgaria, practically independent of the Turkish Empire. Its 
capital, Bucharest, forty-four miles distant from the Danube, is 
reached by railroad. 

How different is the voyage on the Danube from our late ex- 
periences ! Passengers, master, and crew, are all Europeans, gen- 
erally with German features and complexions, but all speaking 
French and Italian as well as their vernacular. But the econ- 
omy of the boat is purely German. There are only two state- 
rooms. We have taken these at ten dollars each per day, extra ; 
while all the other passengers, whether first or second class, sleep 
as they find places, on the sofas and tables of the forward saloon. 

Thursday, July V&th. — Still the Wallachian bank on the north, 
but on the south, Servia. So at last we have left the Turkish Em- 
pire behind us. The only monuments which the "Waywode of Ser- 
via exhibits are the now tenantless fortifications, castles, and 
barracks, in which Turkish garrisons were maintained, long after 
the severance of Servia, for the security of the empire. 

What shall we say of Turkey \ Let us say that, having seen it, 
we find it a greater puzzle than before — more completely hybrid 
than any other state that has ever existed — a combination of two 
antagonistic and irreconcilable forces — half Asiatic, half European 
— half Saracenic, half Crusader — half Christian, half Mussulman — 
half civilized, half uncivilized — half hostile and belligerent, half 
pacific and enervated. Thus it has a more difficult political posi- 
tion, than any empire has had, to maintain ; and a geographical 
position, the worst that could be conceived, for maintaining. Its 
own security requires that it shall not only close the passage be- 



656 EUROPE. 

tween two seas, but also, dominate on the shores of two continents. 
Turkey is thus in everybody's way. The Russians, covering the 
entire northern part of Europe, and bordering on the Black Sea 
and the Caspian, want free access to the Mediterranean and the 
Persian Gulf. The English, French, and Germans, want free ac- 
cess to the wheat-fields of the Danube ; the Italians have a prescrip- 
tive right to the Archipelago. All the countries of Continental 
Europe, like the United States, are becoming manufacturing coun- 
tries. They need open roads and free markets on the borders of 
the Black Sea, and throughout the entire Asiatic Continent. 
Steadily, perseveringly, they go on, opening the roads to such mar- 
kets. Great Britain and France have already effected railroad and 
canal communication through Egypt to the Red Sea. British cor- 
porations have achieved two or three railways in Turkey. A direct 
and continuous railway communication, across Western Asia to 
India, looms up already in the near future, while the traditional 
policy of Russia demands not only free passage through the Bos- 
porus by sea, but will soon exact a passage through Persia, and 
the Turkish dominions, from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean. 
Even the United States, although they but seldom float a ship in 
the Levant, and only occasionally display their flag there, yet, con- 
scious of a maritime destiny, chafe, like the European states, against 
the Turkish restraints on navigation. Thus Turkey is in every- 
body's way. The empire must maintain the Mohammedan reli- 
gion, or fall a victim to its fanaticism. That religion, incapable of 
reconciling itself to Christian codes of laws, manners, customs, and 
sympathies, naturally provokes and stimulates the hatred of the 
Western nations. 

At the same time, the Turks, while they have not lost their 
national pride and valor, have become comparatively too feeble in 
numbers, and too poor in wealth, to maintain an equal controversy 
with any of the formidable "Western states. The Christian part of 
the population in the empire and its outposts are continually giving 
signs of disloyalty to the Porte, and seeking protection and alliance 
with Russia, Great Britain, France, the United States, and every 
other foreign power. Meanwhile the distant Mohammedan depend- 



TURKISH POLICY. 657 

encies in Africa, Arabia, and on the shores of the Persian Gulf, are 
factious, and in any emergency are more likely to assert their own 
independence than to yield support to the empire against an enemy. 
Under these circumstances, Turkey continues to live only by prac- 
tising conciliation and making concessions ; and these concessions 
are measured, not by her own ability to grant, but by the magnanim- 
ity which extorts. Never without a patron, she seeks the strong- 
est, but, like all dependent powers, she must be content with such 
as she can secure. The Turkish Government in Europe has been 
prolonged, chiefly by means of her European allies, a hundred years. 
While improving in administration, laws, and manners, the empire 
is manifestly less formidable to-day than ever before. How much 
longer it shall survive depends altogether on the mutations of that 
most intricate of all combinations, the balance of power in Europe. 
Just now, however, it has a new ground of hope for longer im- 
munity in the misfortunes which have lately come to the French, 
Spanish, and Austrian states, and the fall of the temporal suprem- 
acy of the Pope, coincidences which seem to render an aggressive 
combination of Catholic Europe against Mohammedan Turkey im- 
possible. On the whole, our conclusions must be that the Turkish 
Empire will ultimately disappear from Europe, but when, or how, 
cannot be determined, while no such uncertainty hangs over the 
political institutions of Western Europe. 

This conclusion seems a hard one to a generous mind that wit- 
nesses not only the sincere attempt on the part of the Sultan and 
the ministry to modify the laws and customs of the Empire, but 
sees also so many pleasing evidences of active improvement and 
progress. 

It is, however, only too palpable that the closer the approach 
which the Turkish Empire may make toward the ideas and prin- 
ciples of the West, the more its European provinces will be em- 
boldened to shake off its sway altogether ; while, on the other hand, 
the concessions made in effecting that approach tend immeasurably 
to disgust and demoralize Mohammedans in Asia and Africa, and 
so weaken the cohesion between the Government and its languish- 
ing or dead Oriental provinces and dependencies. 



G58 EUROPE. 

Orsova, July \Ath. — We passed the " Iron Gate " safely this 
morning, notwithstanding our itinerary instructions had prepared 
us for the passage by the following sensational description : " We 
now approach the ' Iron Gate.' At this name we are seized with a 
feeling of terror, but the captain and crew assure us there is no dan- 
ger, for the pilot understands the navigation." 

The Hungarians claim that the Iron Gate surpasses the most 
picturesque scenery on the Rhine, in point of granduer. "We arc 
obliged to confess that it is not inferior in effect to that of the High- 
lands of the Hudson, which in mountain scenery it resembles. At 
the Iron Gate we enter a defile, a mile and a quarter long, in which 
the river, reduced to the width of six hundred feet, has a fall of 
sixteen feet — above this is a succession of smaller rapids and whirl- 
pools. From time immemorial, the improvement of the Iron Gate 
has been an anxious study of the nations which control the Dan- 
ube. While we were examining the ruins of an old canal around 
it, our friends, the American engineers McAlpine and Powell, em- 
ployed by the Danubian Steam Navigation Company, were exhibit- 
ing to us their plans for substituting some other improvement. 

What has surprised us thus far in Hungary is, to find that, 
while the Hungarian mind cherishes a sentiment of state pride 
hardly less strong than that which urged the people of Virginia 
into the rebellion, yet this sentiment seems everywhere completely 
subordinated to the sentiment of loyalty to the Emperor of Aus- 
tria, as the King of Hungary. 

Buda-Pesth, July 11th. — How striking is the contrast of Euro- 
pean and Asiatic civilization ! Though Buda-Pesth is an inland 
provincial town, with a population of two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand, the tonnage in its port, altogether of steam, is greater than 
that of Cairo, Alexandria, or Constantinople. We were not pre- 
pared for a scene of such activity. 

The river divides the port into two parts. On the southern 
bank is the royal palace, and a long line of fortifications crowns 
the hills, while the shore seems to contain the dwellings of officers 
and others in the service of the Government. This is Buda. On 



W'fiiM 




fins 



BUDA-PESTH. 659 

the opposite side is a plain covered witli a large metropolis. This 
is Pesth. 

We had determined to remain here one day, although we had 
neither acquaintances nor references at Pesth. While we were 
wondering what we should do, and where we should go, we saw 
the United States nag waving from the roofs of two lofty buildings 
on the terrace which overlooks the river. We rounded and deliv- 
ered passengers on the quay at Bucla, then swept across and fast- 
ened to the wharf at Pesth, where we were met by the United 
States vice-consul, and conducted to apartments which, in anticipa- 
tion of our coming, he had secured in the Grand Hotel, now newly 
opened by a proprietor especially desirous of securing the favor of 
American travellers. Here we feel, for the first time, that we have 
left the East behind, and have only Western civilization around 
and before us. It seems strange that in the same conjuncture are 
met, for the first time, American interest and influence. An Hun- 
garian surgeon, exiled with Kossuth, went in the early emigration 
to California, where he acquired an independence. Afterward he 
was appointed United States consul at Bucharest, where he has 
resided for several years. He has made his permanent home at 
Pesth, and takes great pride in his native city. But what is more 
remarkable is, that to-morrow Pesth gives a trial to two reaping- 
machines, which are sent out here by the manufacturers, neighbors 
of ours in Auburn. 

We have passed a pleasant hour in looking down from our bal- 
cony upon the people of Pesth, who are enjoying the fashionable 
promenade of this street. There is nothing in their appearance or 
ways to distinguish them from similar groups on Fifth Avenue. 

Pesth, July 17th, Evening. — We made a tour this morning 
among the public institutions and monuments. We admired, as it 
deserved, the noble suspension-bridge which, crossing the Danube, 
connects the two cities of Buda and Pesth, although structures of 
that sort have ceased to be a wonder for us since we have crossed 
so often the suspension-bridges of the Niagara and the Ohio. This 
one is twelve hundred feet long, and twenty-two feet wide, swings 



660 EUROPE. 

sixty feet above the water, and was built by an English engineer 
(Clark) at a cost of seven million dollars. This bridge has an 
historical interest. The citizens of Pesth rose in defence of their 
national independence in 1818, and met and massacred Count 
Lamberg, an imperial messenger from Vienna, who was crossing 
the river to disperse the Hungarian Diet by force. It may be 
deemed an evidence of the advance of civilization that, in' the 
dreadful civil strife, although the contending armies by turns se- 
cured the beautiful structure, neither party laid violent hands on it. 
On one occasion the Hungarian army, routed and defeated, was pur- 
sued across it by the Austrian army, sixty thousand strong. Three 
months later, the Austrians, retreating in their turn, were pursued 
across it by the now victorious Hungarians. Notwithstanding all 
this, the bridge remained unimpaired at the close of the struggle. 

Buda was the ancient capital of Hungary, while Pesth, on the 
opposite side, long remained an important town. At Buda we 
visited the palace of the kings of Hungary, with the citadel and 
extensive barracks, claimed to be the largest in the world. These 
structures, built on a lofty eminence which overlooks Pesth, have 
a commanding view of the Danube and of the great Hungarian 
plain on either side of the majestic river. When the union of the 
crowns of Hungary and Austria took place, it was distinctly stipu- 
lated that the Emperor of Austria should be crowned in Hungary ; 
that Hungary should preserve its constitutional powers ; and that, 
as king, the emperor should alternately reside in Hungary and in 
Austria. The palace of the ancient Hungarian line had been de- 
stroyed in the Turkish wars, and the building of the present one 
was begun in the reign of Charles VI., and finished by Maria 
Theresa, his daughter. This palace, however it may compare with 
the Schonbrunn, is not unworthy to be the imperial residence. But 
Hungary being more progressive than Austria, her claims of an- 
cient rights and privileges became annoying to the imperial throne, 
and, in the reactionary administration of Metternich, every effort 
was made to extinguish the Hungarian constitution, and to destroy 
Hungarian independence. Joseph II. refused to be crowned in 
Hungary, and the palace in which his mother Maria Theresa had 



THE HUNGARIAN PEOPLE. 661 

found a safe refuge against the pursuit of Frederick the Great be- 
came from that time untenanted. It is now honored by an occa- 
sional sojourn of the present emperor and the court. The orna- 
ments, decorations, and furniture, of the palace are rich, tasteful, 
and in harmony with the customs and manners of 'European so- 
ciety. There are statues, paintings, books, and music, not to speak 
of cosey salons and boudoirs, nurseries, school-rooms, and chambers, 
impressing us with their cheerful contrast to the empty, monotonous 
grandeur of Oriental imperial harems. Besides portraits of the 
present imperial family, there are two of great historic interest. 
One represents a battle-scene, with Prince Eugene as its prominent 
figure ; the other depicts the heroic Maria Theresa appealing to the 
loyalty of the nation. 

The hills around Buda are chiefly occupied by pleasant country- 
seats. The city of Pesth is nine miles in circumference. Three 
hundred streets divide it into nearly regular squares. It is the 
Hungarian centre of science, literature, and art, as well as com- 
merce. It has theatres, colleges, parks, gardens, and every, thing 
which becomes such a city. Among all these objects of interest, 
we paused to look only at two. One was the stone stage on which 
the kings of Hungary were crowned, and the other the celebrated 
Esterhazy gallery of paintings, which is especially rich in the works 
of Claude Lorraine and of the great Spanish masters. Having 
been bought by a spirited and patriotic association, it has become 
the chief pride of the city. 

We have had no desire on this journey so intense as to see 
Hungary. When the Hungarian people rose to assert its indepen- 
dence in 1847, it seemed an unknown country to us. Its three 
centuries of strife, trial, and achievement, while the forces of Chris- 
tianity and Islamism were contending for a boundary on its plains, 
had been forgotten. The whole world were taken by surprise 
when they saw in the circumstances of the revolution, not only 
just cause, but virtue as great, intelligence as commanding, with 
energy and valor as marked, as those which won for our own revo- 
lution the respect and good wishes of nations. At first the sym- 
pathies of nearly the whole American people were earnestly with 
50 



662 EUEOPE. 

tla em. When, however, the revolution subsided, and its patriot 
leaders were decimated or sent into exile, and Hungary fell more 
completely than before under the heels of despotism, a few of her 
earliest and most constant friends found that they stood almost 
alone, at home and abroad, in their respect and pity for the unfor- 
tunate nation. Memory brings up once more the scene of Kos- 
suth's sad pilgrimage to Mount Yernon, and of his standing in 
silent contemplation before the tomb of Washington, the only man 
who had secured the reverence of all mankind by his successful de- 
votion to his country and liberty. His friends left him alone with 
his thoughts, and, on returning, found him suffused with tears. 
"'Washington," said he, " succeeded; I have failed." 

Having so often wished to come here and renew, on the ground, 
the opinions and the course of action then pursued, it is a satisfac- 
tion and a reward to find the Hungarian people all that the friends 
of liberty throughout the world thought them to be — to find that 
their quarrel with the Government of Austria was just — that they 
had a right to be free — that they had the valor, the energy, the 
intelligence which would have gained their freedom, but for such 
combinations as no people ever had the ability to overcome. 
When they had surmounted factious disputes, growing out of dif- 
ferences of race, language, and religion in Hungary, their attempt 
to achieve their independence, within necessary boundaries, was 
the signal for antagonism, resistance, and civil war, in the sur- 
rounding provinces of Croatia, Slavonia, Wallachia, and Transyl- 
vania. The separation of Hungary from the German provinces of 
Austria would be a dismemberment which the empire could not 
survive. Russia, through the eyes of the Emperor Nicholas, saw 
in it the restoration of the independence and sovereignty of Poland. 
European nations, intent on commercial enterprise, shrank from 
political agitation, which might reproduce the disasters of the 
French Revolution of 1793. And now, we are required to decide 
on the spot whether the sacrifices, which Hungary then made, were 
entirely without avail ; and whether her aspirations were impracti- 
cable, and have perished with the failure of her revolution, leaving 
her no remaining hope. The situation which Hungary occupies 



THE DANUBE. 663 

now satisfies all these hitherto painful inquiries. The march of 
progress in Europe, since 1849, has proved irresistible. Austria 
suffered by a fearful blow received from France, costing her practi- 
cally her Italian dominions. Later, a blow from Germany, which 
almost seemed to be fatal, has obliged her to give up the reac- 
tionary policy to which she so tenaciously adhered, and at the same 
time to fall back, as she must always fall back, on the resources, 
the valor, and the loyalty of Hungary. The Hungarians have 
taken advantage of this emergency to secure from the Austrian 
Empire a confirmation of all their cherished political rights and lib- 
erties, without betraying the empire to its enemies. There is 
hardly a political right or privilege, a citizen of the United States 
enjoys, that is not now guaranteed to the subjects of Francis Jo- 
seph in Hungary, except that one which no nation in Europe has 
shown the courage to assume — the right of electing their own chief 
magistrate by impartial suffrage. The concession of these rights in 
Hungary has necessitated an equally popular reform in the other 
parts of the empire ; and although Hungary has failed to achieve 
independent national existence, which she has never sincerely 
striven for, she is carrying the whole Austrian Empire to a higher 
plane of responsible government and popular freedom. It may be 
doubtful how the Austrian Government can succeed in the new 
political autonomy, which the persistence of Hungary, combined 
with the embarrassments of the empire, has forced upon it ; but it 
is quite certain that in no case can Hungary lose the advantages 
she has so deservedly gained. Considerations like these have 
soothed the regret with which we have seen our revolutionary 
friend, Count Pulsky, occupying a place in the councils of the em- 
peror at Yienna ; and the deeper sorrow with which we have seen, 
everywhere here, that the remembrance of the martyrs of 1848, as 
well as the names of the patriots who survived that period, Kos- 
suth, Asboth, and Ujhazy, seems to be nearly forgotten. 

On the Damibe, July l§th. — The easiest and the best way to 
study political geography is to follow the navigation of great riv- 
ers. The Danube conveys and distributes among all nations the 



664: EUKOPE. 

cereals of Central Europe. It is a pleasure, as you ascend its 
strong though not dangerous current, to recall the history of Eu- 
rope from the beginning of "Western civilization. The Danube 
was the boundary which Roman conquests did not pass until the 
beginning of the decline of the empire. It was the high-road of the 
northern barbarians who avenged upon the empire the aggression 
and the insults they had received from the republic, and who, set- 
tling down in their new conquests, submitted themselves to the 
laws and religions of the enervated nations whom they had sub- 
dued, and gave to Europe and the world the basis of a new and 
higher civilization. In its whole length, from the Black Sea to 
Vienna, the Danube was the battle-ground between Christianity 
and Islamism ; the boundary between them, continually shifting, 
has scarcely yet been fixed. We had a strong desire to follow the 
majestic river to its navigable source, in close neighborhood of the 
Rhine, but time does not permit. We, therefore, left it at Pesth, 
for the more rapid but less instructive travel by rail, and have 
had a ten hours' journey of one hundred and forty miles. The soil 
over which we have passed, like that of the plain below Pesth, is 
fertile ; the landscape beautiful ; the people universally industri- 
ous, women sharing the field-labors equally with the men. 

Vienna, July %lst. — Since leaving Constantinople, we have 
been enjoying glimpses of Western civilization, but only partial 
glimpses, as if through long and shaded vistas. Now it seems 
that we have rushed into its very centre as we entered the wide 
and magnificent streets of Vienna. Those of our party who are 
untravelled in Europe asked, as we rolled from the station, through 
broad and shaded avenues, bordered by palatial edifices, and orna- 
mented with classic fountains and equestrian statues, to our hotel 
which overlooks the fine boulevard on the ancient ramparts of the 
city, " Does London or Paris surpass this ? " 

Vienna is, indeed, a great city. Its population exceeds three- 
quarters of a million ; its accumulated wealth is immense. Its 
manufacture of scientific apparatus, musical instruments, and arti- 
cles of vertu and luxury, is hardly inferior to that of Paris. Banks, 



PROGRESS OF AUSTRIA. 665 

railroads, and navigation companies, grasp the commerce, not only 
of the Danube, but of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the 
Levant. Its churches are built, by lavish contributions of dying 
devotees, in perfected Gothic grandeur. Its royal and imperial 
palaces are of the oldest of the European dynasties. Its universi- 
ties, colleges, academies of art, its hospitals, and .charities, rival 
those of larger capitals. Its school of music is equalled only by 
that of Leipsic. Of course, it was little of all this magnificence, 
national and metropolitan, that we could see in the short period of 
four days. 

John Jay, our minister resident at Vienna, was in the moun- 
tains when we arrived ; but he came promptly down to receive us, 
and has extended to us the hospitalities of the legation. Mr. Dela- 
plaine, the secretary of the legation, has been equally attentive. 
Mr. Seward complimented Mr. Jay on his success in achieving the 
negotiation of a naturalization convention with the Imperial Gov- 
ernment. Perhaps no single event more strikingly illustrates the 
rapidity of political progress in Austria than this treaty. In 1850, 
Austria was on the verge of a rupture with the United States on 
the occasion of the arrest of Martin Kostza on board an American 
vessel at Trieste. In 1859, Mr. Seward, when here on a visit, was 
coldly and distantly received by the emperor at an audience in the 
Imperial Palace. Yesterday, coming here so soon after the Arch- 
duke Maximilian's unhappy catastrophe in Mexico, Mr. Seward was 
invited by the Count von Beust, prime-minister of the empire, to a 
public dinner, given by that minister to the American representa- 
tive and the diplomatic corps, by way of celebrating a naturaliza- 
tion treaty with the United States, which recognizes the right of 
all men, subjects of any government, to change their political alle- 
giance, and enjoy the protection of the state they prefer. Yet 
more remarkable was it that the entertainment was given in the 
very hall in which the Congress of Vienna sat in 1815, to establish 
peace and give public law to Europe. 

The political situation in Austria is more embarrassing than in 
any other country of Europe, except France. Unlike France, its 
evils are chronic. The Austrian Empire is not in any sense a con- 



66Q 



EUROPE. 



solidated nation, but, in the course of five hundred years, has ag- 
gregated, by royal marriages or by conquest, a large number of 
formerly independent kingdoms, principalities, and duchies, in 
Central Europe. The present Austrian Empire consists of nine- 
teen separate states yet remaining of that aggregate, differing from 
each other in race, language, habits, religion, customs, and com- 
merce — a part German, a part Magyar, a part Slave, a part Italian, 




COUNT VON BEUST. 



a part Turkish, a part Greek. There are Mohammedans, Greeks, 
Roman Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. The Protestants are di- 
vided between Lutherans and Calvinists. These nationalities and 
sects, necessarily separated from each other, have been held in com- 
bination by force only, without social assimilations. Of Austria, 
with it's thirty-five million people, it must be said, as it cannot be said 
of any other nation in the world, that there is no Austrian people. 



AUSTRIAN POLICY. 067 

The world knows its subjects by the names of their respective na- 
tionalities or provinces only. Every one recognizes the subject of 
France as a Frenchman ; of Sweden, as a Swede ; of Denmark, as 
a Dane ; of Italy, as an Italian ; of Russia, as a Russian — but we 
know the subjects of Austria only as Bohemians, Hungarians, Ty- 
rolese, Germans, Poles, Slavonians, and "Wallachians. The empire 
has hitherto had no common constitution. In the provinces of 
Upper Austria and Lower Austria, the emperor rules as emperor : 
while, in Bohemia and Hungary, he rules, not as emperor, but as 
king of those countries respectively. There has been no common 
legislature. He is despotic in some of the states ; a constitutional 
and limited monarch in some others. It may not be doubted that 
the emperors of Austria have constantly desired and striven to 
effect a consolidated empire. It is because they, on the one hand, 
have usually aimed at effecting absolute unity by coercion, that 
the several states, on the other, have striven to preserve absolute 
independence by resistance. The absolute in any thing is unat- 
tainable by man, although, as a general law, we attain any thing 
desirable only by striving for the absolute. The great Maria The- 
resa was the first who, with sagacity and energy, attempted the 
task of unification. Joseph II. persevered with great fidelity in 
the work ; but all this policy was shipwrecked in the general con- 
vulsion of the Napoleonic wars, and Austria, under the administra- 
tion of Metternich, became a victim of absolutism at home, and a 
leader of that hated cause in Europe. His course eventuated in 
the Hungarian insurrection of* 1848. Upon the successful suppres- 
sion of that revolution, the young monarch, Francis Joseph, inau- 
gurated a new policy, comprising liberal reforms and concessions 
of constitutional liberty to the respective states. The jealousies of 
these states, however, have thus far rendered every attempt at a 
common and equal basis of government impracticable. It remains 
to be seen whether an harmonious constitution of the empire can 
ever be established. 

How can it be hoped for after such continued failures ? It 
may, because the Danube is the great river of Europe. Its 
branches are the granary and the vineyard of a large portion of 



668 EUROPE. 

the world, and supply the elements of commerce for half of Eu- 
rope. The nations or states which occupy these banks must have 
the protection and defence that all states require. This protection 
must be afforded by distant states on the Atlantic coast or on the 
Bosporus. Hitherto the German race on one side, and the Turk- 
ish race on the other, have contended for dominion on the Danube. 
But the Turkish Government has at last become effete, while the 
German race has found a permanent line of geographical division. 
The time has come when consolidation can be successfully main- 
tained at the centre of the Danubian plain. It is not easy to fore- 
see how much or what part of the German race may yet drop off 
from Austria, and be incorporated into the German Empire. But, 
whether that diminution or abatement of the Austrian Empire be 
more or less, enough of its population and resources will remain to 
constitute a nation extending from the Bosporus to Germany and 
Italy, and embracing enough of the space between the Russian 
boundary and the Mediterranean to make a great empire. Nor 
can this Austro-IIungarian Empire fail to dominate on the Medi- 
terranean shore from the Adriatic to the Sea of Marmora. It may 
be asked whether, in this view, we do not accept Austria as a perma- 
nently imperial or despotic government. We think not. For the 
transition from despotism to republicanism is due to agencies which 
more or less pervade the whole world, or at least the civilized por- 
tion of it. Nations may change their forms of government with- 
out at all affecting their domestic policy in their relation to foreign 
states. Meantime, it is an occasion of sincere satisfaction to wit- 
ness the progress of material and social improvement that has been 
made on the banks of the Danube. When we look at the vigorous 
and varied agriculture, and the stupendous works of material im- 
provement which they exhibit, we might almost fancy ourselves at 
home in the United States. 



CHAPTER III. 

ITALY. 

Venice. — American Knights Templars. — Florence. — Attractiveness of the City. — Rome. 
— The Coliseum. — Cardinal Antonelli and the Pope. — Interview with the Pope. — 
The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. — The Schools of Art. — Naples. — Vesuvius. 
Early Civilization on the Mediterranean Coast. — Naples, the Newport of the Roman 

' Empire. — Genoa. — Susa. — Prospects of Italy. 

Venice, July 25th. — We expected to find Venice in a dilapi- 
dated and sinking condition. On the contrary, while a large 
number of its palaces and wharves are empty and idle, there is at 
present a pervading air of activity and cheerfulness. What can be 
the cause of this ? Venice has become, in its decline, a resort for 
the studious, the contemplative, and the pleasure-seeking classes 
throughout all Europe. It is, indeed, a watering-place like New- 
port, and we happen to be here in the fashionable season. We 
were startled this morning by a request of the good keeper of our 
hotel, that we would set our dinner-hour for the day at either five 
or seven o'clock, because at . six he was to furnish a feast to " fifty 
Knights Templars in full regalia ! " 

We thought we had read history in vain. We had supposed 
that ancient and chivalrous order, driven from the East by the 
Saracens, had been extirpated five hundred years ago throughout 
Europe. We thought — 

" The knights' bones are dust, 
Their good swords rust, 
Their souls are with the saints, we trust." 



670 EUROPE. 

What was our surprise to learn, not only that fifty of them are 
alive and well, but that they were in our lodging in full armor, and 
that they are our own countrymen ! They belonged to the Ma- 
sonic order, and were making the tour of Europe together. 

Florence, July 27th. — Gray Apennine Mountains, with dash- 
ing torrents, bright and cloudless skies, balmy breezes, rich and 
highly-cultivated plains, with winding rivers and laughing vine- 
yards, picturesque rural architecture, storied castles, romantic vil- 
las, these are the surroundings of Florence. We can now, for the 
first time, appreciate the art of Claude Lorraine, and the poetry of 
Virgil, Dante, and Milton. 

Leaving the Golden Gate nearly a year ago, we have traversed 
the earth's circumference more than sixteen thousand miles before 
we obtained our first glimpse of cheerful European society at Pesth. 
In brightness, dignity, and repose, the view of it has improved at 
every step of our descent of the Alps and the Apennines. 

It being midsummer, no one is in town. Mr. Marsh, United 
States minister, greets us in a letter from the mountains, where he 
is detained by illness in his family. King, ministers, and court, 
all are said to have gone to Rome to reorganize the state of Italy 
in that ancient capital ; but in reality, like the political functiona- 
ries of Austria, they are enjoying the mountains, the sea-side, and 
other pleasure - resorts. We found, without difficulty, pleasant 
apartments in the Hotel de V Europe, near the Piazzi della Santa 
Trinita. This morning Mr. Wurtz, the United States secretary 
of legation, came with our letters, and has given us kind assist- 
ance in our hurried explorations of this, the most delightful of Eu- 
ropean cities. The first impression we receive is, that the edifices 
and dwellings of Florence are majestic and solemn, while the 
streets are broader, more perfectly paved, and cleanly kept, than 
any others in the world. The next impression is, that the people 
one meets are more gentle and accomplished than any other peo- 
ple. How marvellous is the contrast in this respect between Flor- 
ence and Yeddo, Peking, Calcutta, Cairo, Constantinople, or even 
Vienna ! 



ENTRANCE INTO ROME. 671 

It has been a subject of curious inquiry for us why Florence, 
more than any other Italian city — indeed, more than any city in 
Europe — is attractive to Americans as well as to the English. The 
reason, we think, is, that the great ideas which the world has de- 
rived from the philosophy, poetry, and art of Italy, have produced 
in the character of the people of Florence a harmony with the 
more enlightened social life of those two nations. It was a touch- 
ing illustration of this truth, that we found, in the foreign cemetery 
of Florence, the tombs of Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning, and Louise Kuhn, daughter of Charles Francis Adams. 

Rome, July 29tk. — Even if Rome retains a consciousness of her 
identity with the City of the Emperors, she could not complain as 
the lady of the harem in Constantinople did, that we had rushed 
into her presence irreverently. 

Leaving Florence this morning, we passed through, what so long 
has been the patrimony of St. Peter, the States of the Church, but 
which has just now been absorbed into the new kingdom of Italy. 
The Italian mountain scenery contrasts strikingly with that of the 
Tyrol — the latter covered with forests, chiefly evergreen, alternating 
with fields of corn and wheat — the former gray arid rocky, relieved 
by the bluish-green olive-orchards, and the deep rich verdure of 
the chestnut. Old cities and villas, built not on the plain, but on 
mountain-tops, call up memories of mediseval history. The railroad 
winds for many miles around the picturesque Lago di Trasdmeno, a 
view of which must compensate us for the loss of the sight of the 
beautiful Lago Maggiore. The entrance into Rome, nay, the very 
approach to it, is accompanied with an unpleasant feeling of the 
confusion of the ancient with the modern. That long arcade, which 
you see on the left, is the still remaining, though broken aqueduct 
of the ancient city. That medieval gate through which we enter 
is a structure not unlike the Cashmere gate at Delhi, or the Damas- 
cus gate of Jerusalem. This fine, well-built square is the railroad- 
station. And now, as we are rattling through compact, solid, mod- 
ern streets, a fountain comes into view, in which Neptune is drawn 
in his floating car by tritons, while the foaming water breaks over 



G72 EUROPE. 

a broad, rocky basin. ' We have scarcely time to notice this foun- 
tain, before we pass Trajan's Column, its base sunk in the deep 
plain and its capital towering above the city. And now we enter 
the court of the Hotel Costanzi, the whole of which, we are told, is 
at our service. 

Dinner cannot detain the traveller, however weary, on the first 
day of his stay in the Eternal City. "Where do we go, then ? To 
the Coliseum. Where else could a stranger pass his first evening 
in Rome, and that, too, a moonlight one? 

When we came under the dark shadow of the stupendous ruin, 
a courteous Italian sentinel assisted us to alight, and indicated the 
passage. Here was a change ! When in Rome in 1859, a French 
soldier repulsed us from this gate at night, because we had not an 
order of admission from the commandant of the French army of 
occupation. At the same time a French bugler, standing under the 
arch of. the Temple of Peace, on the opposite side of the street, 
made the surrounding ruin echo with the notes of a French martial 
air. 

We then remarked that it was not always so ; the Roman once 
would have cut down the Gaul who should have intruded here 
with such warlike flourish. It is fortunate for us now that the 
modern Gaul has withdrawn from the ancient city, and the more 
amiable Roman has resumed the care of its monuments. 

After all, the first visit to the Coliseum should be by sunlight, 
because the curiosity concerning its real form, proportions, and 
uses, is too strong to admit of the indulgence of imagination, which 
only enhances beauty at the cost of accuracy of vision. Neverthe- 
less, the light of the moon, streaming into the great arena, enabled 
us to form an idea of the general outline and design of the immense 
structure. Those four tiers or stories of stone benches seated a 
hundred thousand Romans. These vaulted chambers of the base- 
ment held the gladiators prepared for their deadly encounters; 
these others, the wild beasts, and those beyond, the captive Chris- 
tians, who were to perish in the unequal combat. This spacious 
chamber is where the emperor sat while presiding over the savage 
amusement. This arena must have drunk oceans of blood, since, 



iM^mmm 




WMM\>miZMMMm& 



THE COLISEUM. 673 

during a single festival, beasts and men were slaughtered by the 
thousand ; and the same walls that now give back to us the voices 
of monks, performing midnight orisons, then resounded with the 
fearful acclamations of the multitude, which unmercifully doomed 
the vanquished gladiator. 

Our feelings were so intensely absorbed in these reflections, 
that we did not care to clamber among the ruined arches, or 
through the shrubs entangled with vines which festoon and some- 
times choke them. How does the Coliseum, the most stupen- 
dous of Roman monuments compare with Karnak or Luxor in 
Egypt ? 

The Coliseum is built of brick and stone ; Karnak and Luxor 
are built with monoliths of granite. The Coliseum was adapted 
to the tastes and habits of men ; Karnak and Luxor were con- 
structed for the uses of the gods. The Coliseum is great \ Karnak 
and Luxor are gigantic. Others may study monuments for their 
architectural grandeur or beauty, but we must regard them as mile- 
stones marking the progress of the world's civilization. The Coli- 
seum, built to commemorate the consummation of the Roman Em- 
pire, remains equally a monument of its decline and extinction. It 
commemorates the fulness and completeness of the conquest of the 
world by the Roman people. It was the place in which they cele- 
brated their triumph. 

August 3d. — Immediately on our arrival here, Dr. Smith, pro- 
fessor in the College of the Propaganda, Mr. Seward's old friend, 
to whom we are indebted for many courtesies, asked : " Will you 
see the Pope and Cardinal Antonelli ? " 

The question had peculiar significance, since it is only within 
the last month that the King of Italy made his formal entry into 
Rome, and established the national authority within the capital, to 
the exclusion of the political supremacy of the Pope. Mr. Seward 
said that he would certainly be happy to receive any consideration 
at the hands of the Italian Government, but should on no account 
fail to pay his respects to his Holiness and to the cardinal. They 
were just and friendly toward the United States during her hour 



674 



EUROPE. 



of trial, and had shown him personally kind hospitality when he 
was here in 1859. He considers it his duty to cherish enduring 
friendship toward all who in the supreme hour of American struggle 
were just and faithful to his country or himself. 

The Cardinal Antonelli, with whom Mr. Seward has enjoyed 
a personal acquaintance for many years, and who is one among 
the few statesmen of Europe that have always been just and 




CARDINAL ANTONELLI. 



liberal toward the United States, received him and the members 
of his party with distinguished courtesy in his splendid suite of 
apartments at the Vatican. Brought doubtless by sincere convic- 
tion, as well as by the policy of the Holy See, into conflict with 
the progressive spirit of the age, the cardinal-secretary, as all 
know, is not a favorite in republican circles at home or abroad, 
while all must acknowledge him to be a man of great sagacity, of 



INTERVIEW WITH THE POPE. 675 

political fidelity, of high accomplishments, and refined manners. 
The conversation between him and Mr. Seward was cordial and 
without reserve. It turned first on the great events which had 
recently occurred in the United States ; the suppression of the re- 
bellion, the overthrow of slavery, the firm establishment of the 
Union, and the reconciliation consequent upon the conflict. The 
cardinal expressed himself as not surprised that the public justice 
of the United States inconsistently allowed the escape of the con- 
spirator Suratt, whom the Pope had, without previous treaty, and 
without conditions, so promptly ordered to be arrested and de- 
livered on Mr. Seward's demand. 

The conversation then turned on the political situation in Rome. 
The Roman question is settled ; the Italians have Rome ; there is 
no prospect of immediate change, but the Pope will not leave the 
Vatican. He has remained there for many months, and he will 
not leave it voluntarily for any other residence in Rome or out of 
it. He will not compromise ; he will wait. " Non possumus " — 
the words produced a smile — is the only maxim which his Holiness 
can practise when required by man to betray a trust committed to 
him by God. 

We were informed, yesterday, that his Holiness would receive 
Mr. Seward in a private audience at eleven o'clock to-day, and at 
twelve o'clock he would receive the two ladies in the public audi- 
ence, and Dr. Smith was requested to be present and to act as inter- 
preter for the party. On the stroke of eleven, Mr. Seward and Dr. 
Smith having reached the Hall of the Throne, Monsignore Ricci. 
Maestro di Camera, announced that his Holiness was waiting to 
receive Mr. Seward. He followed monsignore through several 
spacious and richly -furnished antechambers, passing crowds of prel- 
ates who were awaiting an audience. Among these dignitaries 
were occasionally seen priests, easily distinguishable by the plain- 
ness of their dress, and an appearance of timidity. Monsignore 
Ricci having opened the door of the chamber in which the Pope 
was sitting alone, then retired. The Holy Father instantly arose, 
and, coming quite to the door, extended both his hands, taking 
those of Mr. Seward. On a slightly-raised dais, at the upper end 



676 EUROPE. 

of the chamber, were two chairs, by the side of a small writing- 
table. The Pope placed Mr. Seward in one of these, and sat down 
in the other. We are informed that hitherto this form of reception 
has been accorded only to sovereigns and princes. 

His Holiness opened the audience by expressing to Mr. Seward 
a grateful appreciation of the liberality and sympathy which he 
always experiences at the hands of the American people, and his 
gratification at receiving Mr. Seward again at Rome. 

Mr. Seward said that in a time when many European govern- 
ments and statesmen were very illiberal and unfriendly to the Uni- 
ted States, his Holiness had proved himself just, considerate, and 
friendly. It was a great satisfaction to him to have an opportu- 
nity to make this acknowledgment in person, and to congratulate 
his Holiness on his good health. The Holy Father then freely 
alluded to his present political situation. Referring to the guaran- 
tees for his safety and support which were proposed to him by Vic- 
tor Emmanuel, he said : " I have no personal desire to reign, but I 
have a trust to keep, and to transmit to my successor. This trust 
is the patrimony of the See of St. Peter, which I received in my 
election. The guarantees offered by the Italians are a mockery 
and a snare. I am a prisoner in chains here, just as my prede- 
cessor St. Peter was in vinculis. I am aware of my situation. 
The kings of this world are all too busy to extend me any help in 
this emergency. I can only look to the King of kings for sup- 
port. My resolution is taken ; come what may, I will make no 
compromise. Won jpossumus I '" 

" Holy Father," replied Mr. Seward, " the question of the 
change of relations between you and the King of Italy is a new 
one, hardly yet ripened into a general discussion. The civilized 
world will consider and pass upon it, and their decision will be 
right. Christian nations, while they know their duty to 'render 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,' know also that it is their 
duty to ' render unto God the things that are God's.' The experi- 
ence of mankind hitherto has shown that they are quite as careful 
to obey the latter precept as they are to fulfil the former injunc- 
tion." 



THE POPE AND THE LADIES. 677 

Mr. Seward then referred to the confidential mission which 
Archbishop Hughes had executed at Rome during the American 
civil war. 

The Pope lamented the early death of the archbishop as a great 
loss to the Church and to the two countries. 

Mr. Seward adverted to the loyalty to the American Union of 
the Roman Catholic hierarchy, as well as their people, and said 
that, for encouraging this loyalty, the late archbishop was entitled 
to the highest place. "Of one thing," said he, "your Holiness 
may be sure — the United States can never be unjust to any just 
nation, or ungrateful to any friendly state." 

The Pope passed his hands over Mr. Seward's face, examining 
the fractures and scars remaining, and then exclaimed : " Your 
escape was a miracle ! " He inquired largely concerning Mr. Sew- 
ard's family, his son Frederick, his wounds and his recovery, other 
children, and their occupations, in a manner most affectionate, and, 
alluding to the ladies, said he should soon have the pleasure of 
meeting them. 

Finally rising, the Pope went to a cabinet, and, taking from it 
a silver medal containing his likeness which has just been struck 
by the Roman nobility in commemoration of his having attained 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pontificate, requested Mr. Sew- 
ard to accept it, and keep it in remembrance of him. The Pope 
then conducted Mr. Seward to the door, saying, " I will soon join 
you in the Consistory." 

Meantime, the ladies had been conducted by Monsignore Ricci 
to the " private Consistory." It is one of the historical chambers 
of the Vatican. Here the Pope creates cardinals and announces 
bishops ; here he pronounces those allocutions which are even 
now implicitly received by the faithful, and which once shook the 
thrones of the Christian world. During the present pontificate, 
the hall has been frescoed and draped for the reception especially 
of ladies. It was in this chamber that the Pope received the Arch- 
duke Maximilian of Austria and the Princess Carlotta, and pro- 
nounced his blessing on their attempt to establish a throne in 
Mexico ; and it was in this chamber that, on her return from that 



678 EUROPE. 

ill-starred expedition, the frenzied princess, refusing to leave volun- 
tarily, was forcibly carried from the papal presence. 

During the hour of Mr. Seward's audience with the Pope, some 
fifty ladies, many of them with children, entered the Consistory, 
and formed into groups on the left side of the chamber below the 
dais on which stands the papal throne. The two ladies of our 
party were standing on the opposite side of the room, where they 
were joined by Mr. Seward and Dr. Smith, the private audience 
being ended. All the ladies were dressed, according to the court 
requirement, in high, black dresses, with the Spanish veil, and 
without gloves. All the children were dressed in white, and car- 
ried lilies for presentation to his Holiness. Just before twelve 
o'clock all the ladies, with the children, arranged themselves along 
the opposite side of the room. Precisely at twelve, the Pope en- 
tered, from a door at the side of the dais, attended by cardinals 
and other prelates and officers. Among these dignitaries were the 
Cardinal Secretary of State Antonelli ; Monsignore di Merode, late 
Minister of War ; Monsignore Pacca, Maggiorclomo ; Cardinal 
Prince Lucien Bonaparte ; General Barberini, Duke of Castel Vec- 
chio, and commander-in-chief of the Guarda ISTobile. The Pope wore* 
a white woollen cassock, with a yellow-satin sash, and gold fringe 
hanging under his left arm. On his head was the crimson zuc- 
chetto / on his finger the " Fisherman's Ring," a jpietra dura, with 
the device emblematic of the Immaculate Conception, but without 
jewels. One of the cardinals bore his red hat on a cushion. As 
the Pope entered the chamber, all present rose to their feet ; he 
then proceeded along and in front of the line of devotees, who 
kneeled and remained in that position until he had passed. He 
laid both hands on the head of each woman and child, saying to 
each some words in Italian in a low voice. Each child presented a 
lily with its little hand, which the Pope received graciously, and 
delivered to a cardinal. When he had passed the entire line, he 
crossed the room to the place where Mr. Seward and his party were 
standing with Dr. Smith. The Pope extended a hand to each of 
the ladies, and expressed his satisfaction in meeting the children 
of his friend Mr. Seward, and proceeded to make inquiries as to 



THE POPE'S BLESSING. 679 

their travels and how they had enjoyed themselves. Alluding to 
Mr. Seward's infirm hands, he asked which of the ladies was taking 
the notes of his travels, thanked her for doing so, and expressed a 
hope that she would continue to do it faithfully. He further asked 
the ladies if they saw any of the sufferers in the massacre at Tien- 
Tsin, and, on. being answered that they saw only the bishop, who 
had given them some of the relics of the martyr Sister Louise, he 
said they were precious tokens. He asked in which country they 
enjoyed their travels most, and his benevolent face beamed with a 
smile when they told him " Italy." When the ladies presented 
some rosaries and crosses brought from Jerusalem, and asked him 
to bless them, he replied, smiling: "Oh, yes; I bless them, but 
they are sanctified already." At length, after many minutes of 
such gentle conversation, he expressed his regret that they did not 
speak Italian, as in that case he would desire to talk much longer 
with them. Then, taking once more a kindly leave, he returned to 
the dais. 

Standing there, he pronounced a short exhortation, all the Cath- 
olics remaining on their knees. He said : " I thank you all for 
your kindness in coming to see me. I hope that all my beloved 
children will hold steadfast in the faith, and grow in grace and 
in good works." Then, extending his arms he added, in a soft, 
melodious voice : " To all I will extend the apostolic benediction ; 
to yourselves, your children, your parents, and your friends. I 
bless you, in the name of the Father who created you, of the Son 
who redeemed you, and of the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth you, and 
in an especial manner I bless the brave young women from Amer- 
ica standing with Father Smith at my right hand. They do not yet 
belong to me, but I charge Father Smith to take care of them 
while they are in Rome, and give them such counsel and instruc- 
tion as will bring them at last into the fold of Christ's flock. I 
shall pray for their safe return to their native land." 

At the close of this address his Holiness retired, with his suite. 

August \§ih. — Since our arrival in Italy, the Italian Govern- 
ment has been engaged in the act of removing from Florence to 



680 EUROPE. 

Rome, henceforth to be the national capital. Victor Emmanuel has 
been received, and, so to speak, reclaimed at Rome. The Palace 
of the Quirinal is undergoing repair for his royal residence. The 
Legislative Hall and edifices are being reconstructed for the execu- 
tive departments ; and the ministers of the Government, as well as 
the foreign ministers, have ostensibly taken up their residence 
here. In this transition stage, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the 
Visconti Yenosta, though here only for two days, exchanged visits 
to-day with Mr. Seward. He was quite as free in his account of 
the embarrassment which the Italian Government suffers from the 
obstinacy of the Pope, as his Holiness was in his account of his 
duresse in the Vatican. The Visconti Venosta represents that the 
Italian people, while they have become practically unanimous in 
favor of the kingdom and the rule of Victor Emmanuel, have lost, on 
the other hand, little or none of their veneration for the Pope, and 
their sense of obedience due to him as the head of the Church. It 
is difficult, in the present condition of affairs, to find a boundary- 
line between the ecclesiastical and civil authority, which will sat- 
isfy the people. He denied, with much warmth, the allegation 
that the Pope is under duresse, and says that it is neither necessary 
nor is it intended to deprive him of any of the privileges or proper- 
ties which, as head of the Church, he enjoys, further than to trans- 
fer to the Government of the state the military force and the 
revenues heretofore derived by him from taxation. "He will 
live and die," said the Visconti Venosta, " free to exercise the full 
offices of the pontificate in the Vatican, and everywhere else in 
Italy." 

"We must not leave it to be inferred that we have been inatten- 
tive to the modern schools of art in Rome. If we have not related 
our visits to the studios of our countrymen and women, it is because 
they are, with tout le monde, absent at this season from Rome. 
We have admired, as every one must, Story's Cleopatra, and the 
Sibyl ; and we have visited Benzoni, perhaps now the head of the 
Italian school. It is manifestly true, as the world says, that the 
chisels of Canova and Thorwaldsen, and other modern sculptors, 
have not attained the science and skill of the Italian school of the 



NAPLES. 681 

middle ages, or those of ancient Greece; but the reason prob- 
ably is, that those former schools flourished in an age and under 
conditions which concentrated the thoughts of mankind upon 
art ; while our own age, more practical, gives precedence to en- 
terprises and achievements of greater political and social pith and 
moment. 

Naples, August 11th. — It is a ten hours' journey from Rome 
to Naples. We can say little more of it than that it is a ride, 
under the cloudless Italian sky, across the Campagna, and thence a 
winding way through native oak-forests, ascending and descending 
river-banks, and Apennine valleys covered with vines and corn, 
until from the mountain-bound coast you descend to the populous 
brink of the unrivalled circular Bay of Naples. 

In the afternoon, a small, light, fleecy cloud, which changed its 
form with every passing breeze, still tenaciously kept its place near 
the top of a dark, lofty, not irregular mountain. This was the 
smoke of burning Vesuvius. But no scovim reached the plain 
through which we passed, nor did a glare of flame appear until 
nightfall, when, after our arrival, we were contemplating the moun- 
tain from the balcony of our hotel. Then, what had been a pillar 
of smoke by day, became a column of flame. A serpentine river 
of fire was seen flowing down the mountain-side. 

It would be an unprofitable, if not a vain attempt, to trace the 
early civilization on the Italian or even the African coast of the 
Mediterranean. We should be lost, with the ancient antiquarians, 
Dion Cassius and Dionysius Halicarnassus, in the mazes of inqui- 
ries concerning the movements of the " Phoenicians," the " Pelas- 
gians," the " Autochthones," the " Indigenes," and " Alpine immi- 
grants." But, long before the Roman state was organized on the 
banks of the Tiber, the Greeks had planted towns and attained a 
certain stage of civilization on the sea-coast. Brundusium (now 
Brindisi), Pompeii, Herculaneum. Neapolis (now Naples), Capua, 
Puteoli, Baioe, and Marseilles, were among those towns, and were 
afterward absorbed in the Roman Empire. The advantages of the 
Bay of Naples in regard to Oriental commerce, the conveniences it 



G82 EUROPE. 

afforded for military and naval expeditions, tlie beauty and salu- 
brity of its position, and its mineral springs, attracted there the 
wealth, the pomp, the ostentation., the literature, and art, of the 
capital. Judging from the relation of Brighton to the British 
capita], or Baden-Baden to Germany, or Newport to the United 
States, we could hardly estimate the importance which the shores 
of the Bay of Naples then enjoyed. Rome was a well-consolidated 
empire, two thousand miles long, one thousand miles broad, trav- 
ersed by a perfect and safe high-road from York in England to 
Jerusalem. It embraced all the great cities of the world, it had 
two admirable languages, and a greater unity prevailed in all de- 
partments of civilization than ever before existed, and scarcely less 
than that which the world now enjoys. Puteoli was really the sea- 
gate of Eome. Nymphs, naiads, sirens, and genii, dwelt in the 
grottos and blue-ocean caves around the shore. If Jupiter did not 
remove there from Olympus, his swiftest messenger permanently 
established himself at Baise, and "Venus abandoned Cyprus for this 
fascinating coast. The Sibyls held the book of fate, whose decrees 
even Jupiter could not reverse, in their grotto at Cumse. On the 
shores of the Bay of Naples, also, was the hell which in all ages 
has filled the imagination with the terrors of a future state, and 
the Elysian Fields of the blest, whose name even our religion 
adopts as most 'descriptive of the felicity which awaits the "just 
made perfect." 

Genoa, August ISth. — The courteous waving of the stars and 
stripes from our mast-head soon brought the consul on board, and 
we have given twenty-four hours to Genoa. It has shown us its 
magnificent harbor and almost impregnable fortifications, its nar- 
row but neat and busy streets, the palaces and villas of its doges 
and noblemen, of many parties and generations : and its cathedrals 
and churches, all of which have justly won for the city its title " la 
Superba." "We have seen its colleges, schools, and universities ; its 
academies of art and science ; its manufactories of delicate fabrics 
and jewelry ; its statuary, paintings, monuments, and relics, and 
the trophies of which it is so justly proud. These all sustain the 



GENOA. 



683 



noble historic record of the Genoese in commerce, as the successors 
of the Venetians ; in arms, as not merely vigorous in self-defence 
against the rival states of Pisa and Yenice, but in conquests in 





Spain, Sardinia, Greece, and Asia Minor ; in wars, not merely for 
self-defence or conquest, but of successful battles and sieges for the 
Cross — a career full of prosperity and faith, now ended, after many 
revolutions, in the peaceful contentment of a united and respected 
Italy. 



Susa, August 19th. — It has been a matter of much regret that 
we were obliged to leave Milan unseen, and to come through 
Turin without stopping at the last capital of the kingdom of Sar- 
dinia, and the first one of restored Italy. But Mr. Seward was 
there during his former visits to Europe, and especially enjoyed 
an acquaintance with Yictor Emmanuel, and the great restorer of 



684 EUROPE. 

Italy, Count Cavour, who was then in retirement on account of 
the Treaty of Villa Franca. It must, therefore, be enough to set 
down the observation that, not only has the restoration of Italian 
unity or nationality originated in Piedmont, but that, in these 
mountain-regions, the sentiment of the equality of man, which is 
conducting all nations toward the republican system of govern- 
ment, has had, if not its origin, at least early and vigorous de- 
velopment. 

The separation of Church and state is essential to the advance- 
ment of modern Italy. This seems to be in the way of accomplish- 
ment. It is not to be expected, nor is it perhaps to be desired, that 
the people of Italy, trained in the ritual and traditions of the 
Church, will all at once renounce the ecclesiastical authority of the 
Pope and become Protestant. But ecclesiastics are not different 
from other men. They can learn to submit in temporal affairs to 
the authority of the state, when they can no longer control it. 
Yet the permanent restoration of Italy involves another difficulty, 
which is of a different kind, and a much greater one. Italy, in or- 
der to succeed, must cast off monarchy and become a republic. A 
federal republic cannot exist with a large standing army. No state 
in Europe is safe against the ambition of monarchical states with- 
out a large standing army. Moreover, it is yet to be seen whether 
these reviving, opulent, prosperous, and intelligent cities, which so 
lately and so long made the fair fields of Italy the scene of their 
fratricidal conflicts, will be content now to acquiesce in the restora- 
tion of Pome to its ancient and long-maintained supremacy. — Adieu 
to Italy ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

SWITZERLAND AND FRANCE. 

Geneva. — The Alps. — The Tunnel of Mont Cenis. — Passports. — American Fondness for 
Switzerland. — Berne. — Swiss Statesmen and Politics. — Distress of France. — The 
Franco-German War. — Lord Lyons. — Mr. Washburne. — Versailles. — The French 
Assembly. — President Thiers. — A Dinner with President Thiers. — Condition of 
France. — M. Drouyn de Lhuys. — M. Laboulaye. — Dr. Evans and the Empress Eu- 
genie. — Aspect of Paris. — Prospects of France. 

Geneva, August 21^. — We have had two delicious days on the 
Alps. From Susa in Piedmont, we went, by a pass six thousand 
feet high, around a peak eleven thousand feet above the sea, to 
Chambery in Savoy ; thence up the valley of the Rhone. The Al- 
pine region, thus traversed, is colder and more sterile than any we 
have passed. Eternal glaciers are suspended from the peaks of 
mountains, down their sides, the rapid torrents of which serve as 
fountains for the Po on the one side and the Rhone on the other. 

Among many interesting antiquities at Susa, one, thoroughly in- 
structive, is the inscription, over its ancient gate-way, enumerating 
the eleven native tribes of the mountain-region, and reciting that 
the king surrenders his authority aud assumes the title of prefect 
under the dominion of the divine Emperor Augustus. 

So it seems to have been from the beginning of the world! 
States are built by overcoming and extinguishing petty, defenceless, 
and contentious tribes. So the United States have extended their 
dominion, from Plymouth to San Francisco, from the St. Lawrence 
to the Rio Grande. 

The Alps, which, from time immemorial, have been the barrier 



GS6 EUROPE. 

and defence of Italy against invasion, are just on the eve of giving 
up that important distinction. The wealth and the vigOi* of West- 
ern nations have spent two thousand years in reducing that barrier. 
Ring Pepin secured from Pope Stephen III. the honorable title of 
" Eldest Son of the Church " by leading an army over it for his relief. 
Louis XIV. improved the pass by sending a French army across it 
for less spiritual motives. Napoleon I. constructed the military 
road used since his time. What the spirit of conquest imperfectly 
executed is now to be completed by commercial enterprise, which, 
taking advantage of modern improvements, has projected the exca- 
vation and construction of a tunnel, with railroad-track, twelve 
miles through the base of the mountain. This enterprise, suffi- 
ciently bold to mark the advance of civilization for many centu- 
ries, has but two equals, both effected simultaneously with it, the 
Pacific Railroad and the Suez Canal. We think it fortunate that 
we have enjoyed the passage over the mountain instead of coming 
through the tunnel, which is to be opened in two weeks. 

At the frontier station we encountered our first experience of a 
state of war. A French officer demanded our passports, and vised 
them with care. This incident recalled a suggestion, made to the 
Emperor Napoleon in 1859, that nothing wOuld impress the people 
of the United States so favorably as an abolition of the passport 
' system, to which he answered, giving the usual reasons for that 
form of political espionage. When, three years later, the United 
States fell into civil war, and established rigorous passport regula- 
tions, which continued even after its close, M. Berthemy, the 
French minister at Washington, expostulated against a system 
which France had then given up. Now, we have left the United 
States, with the passport system abolished, only to find it restored 
in France and Germany. 

We entered Switzerland by the valley of the Rhone, and, fol- 
lowing its winding and highly-cultivated banks, we reached Geneva 
this evening. 

As the cars stopped, the familiar expression was heard, in plain 
English, " There is the governor ; " and in a very few moments we 
were conducted by the zealous and esteemed consul, Mr. Upton, 



SWITZERLAND. 687 

a Virginia loyalist, to delightful apartments in the Metropolitan 
Hotel, on the shore of lovely Lake Leman. 

August 2od. — We seem here to have come upon the verge of 
home. London papers only one day old, New York telegrams 
only six hours old. The hotels are full of Americans. 

What is it that makes Americans so much frequent, haunt, and 
linger in Switzerland ? Is it not for the same reason that people 
frequent, haunt, and linger about a looking-glass, especially if it be 
a convex one that softens their hard features, by presenting them 
in miniature ? What is Switzerland, with its mountains, glaciers, 
forests, cliffs, lakes, cataracts, and rivers — what is it as a political 
state, with its twenty-five cantons and half cantons, its Federal 
Council and Administration, its cantonal legislatures, universal 
suffrage, and eligibility to office, its assignment of war, peace, and 
foreign relations to the Federal Government, and its allotment of the 
protection of life, liberty, and property to local legislatures and 
tribunals, its universal education, voluntary if the people will, com- 
pulsory if they will not, its practical religious toleration — but vast 
North America compressed within an area scarcely two hundred 
and fifty miles square — the United States in miniature? 

Berne, August 2btk. — The United States minister, -Mr. Ilublee, 
like most ministers at this season, is travelling. His secretary, 
Captain Aschmann, a Swiss volunteer in the United States Army, 
who lost a leg at the battle of Fair Oaks, met us at the railroad- 
station, and informed us that the President pro tern, of the Federal 
Council, in the absence of the chief, would call upon Mr. Seward 
immediately on his arrival at the hotel. The republican character 
of the Government could have no better illustration than the ap- 
pearance of that gentleman, Mr. Welti, and his tender of the hospi- 
talities of the capital. There was neither coach, nor equipage, nor 
guard, nor banner, nor sword, nor mace, nor uniform. Mr. Welti 
came, introduced only by Captain Aschmann. He was dressed in 
a suit of plain gray clothes, such as a citizen might wear in a rural 
town of the United States. Long connected, however, with the 



688 EUROPE. 

Government, having in his time more than once presided in the 
Council of State of which he is now a member, he is well informed, 
and his conversation was as instructive as it was interesting. He 
expressed a high personal satisfaction in his recollection, of the fact 
that, in the treaty for the settlement of the San Juan question 
(made between the United States and Great Britain during the 
administration of Mr. Johnson, but which failed of ratificalion by 
the Senate, together with the Alabama Claims Treaty, of the same 
period), he, being President of the Swiss Council, had been named 
as umpire. He explained to Mr. Seward, well and ably, the finan- 
cial condition of this little republic, and the entire contentment of 
its people with their republican institutions. Without an emperor, 
without a king, without a duke or count, without a pope, arch- 
bishop, bishop or prelate, with only a Council of Ministers chosen 
by the Legislature annually from the Council of State, with only 
an organized voluntary militia, in lieu of a standing army, Swit- 
zerland has no foreign wars, no controversies, no domestic disturb- 
ance, and life, liberty, and property, are as safe in the darkest, re- 
motest mountain-glen, as they are in any city under the protection 
of the best police in the world. 

Mr. Seward inquired for Mr. Staempni, late President of the 
Federal Council, and long the leading statesman of the republic. 
He has retired from the administration to assume the management 
of a bank, an illustration how the character of Gallatin was formed, 
and how it happened that Keeker was called to restore the depleted 
treasury of France. 

The present Federal Constitution of Switzerland is framed quite 
closely on the United States model ; the Legislature is composed of 
two Houses — the Council of State consisting of two representatives 
from each canton ; the other House consisting of representatives 
apportioned according to the population. 

Mr. "Welti says that there is even in Switzerland a class of poli- 
tical reformers, agitators, radicals, who demand the abolition of the 
Council of State, so that there shall be only one legislative body. 
He is opposed to this change. 

Mr. Seward hoped that it would not be made. He said that, in 



MR. WELTI. 689 

the beginning of our republic, there was a division on the subject 
of the legislature in the United States. Hamilton, with Washing- 
ton, gave a decided preference to two Houses. Dr. Franklin, influ- 
enced by sympathy with the French reformers, advocated a single 
one. Hamilton's proposition prevailed in the Federal Government 
and in all the States except Pennsylvania, where Franklin's influ- 
ence secured a single legislative body. But even that was soon 
afterward changed. France, whenever she has been republican, 
has adhered to a single legislative chamber. Mexico has followed 
the example of France. It is a singular fact that the republican 
system has failed, or met with only partial success, wherever only 
one legislative body is established, and it has not failed anywhere 
else. 

Mr. Welti inquired of Mr. Seward whether the United States 
would aid Switzerland in claiming the rights of a maritime power 
on the high-seas. 

Mr. Seward thought that, in the absence of a seaport, other na- 
tions were not likely to make such a concession to Switzerland, but 
he expressed his belief that as Switzerland, by reason of its repub- 
lican institutions, has become an asylum and refuge for all political 
exiles, the free states of the world ought to agree to guarantee to 
Switzerland safety against aggression or threats of arbitrary pow- 
ers. Will Switzerland remain a republic? Tes, it is to be ex- 
pected as confidently as it is to be earnestly hoped. Her safety 
finds a guarantee in the zeal, loyalty, and patriotism of her people, 
not less than in the decline of the despotic principle in the once- 
aggressive nations by whom she is surrounded. Even Austria is 
more likely to become republican than Switzerland is to relapse 
from that system. 

And now the president has retired, the capital has been ex- 
plored, the great town-clock of the cathedral, eleven hundred years 
old, has struck the hour of twelve, with the pomp and parade of a 
royal review ; we have fed the bears of Berne, given a letter of 
thanks to the veteran and wounded Swiss attache, and we are en- 
tering the cars which are to convey us through la Idle France, to 

her mourning and disconsolate capital. 
52 



690 EtTEOPE. 

Paris, August %Qth. — "We left Berne rapidly behind us, and, 
following the shore of the long and beautiful Lake jSeufchatel, left 
Switzerland, with its glorious mountains and cascades, its rich 
grazing-grounds, and. its simple, sparse, and rustic population, and, 
coming to the region between the Hhine and the Rhone, entered 
Burgundy, admiring the Cote d'Or, with its magnificent vintages 
and. frequent villages, and reached Dijon at eleven o'clock. 

In frontier France, which we had. passed on the way through 
Chambery to Geneva, and again on the railway from Berne to 
Dijon, we saw only painful manifestations of public and private 
sorrow and anxiety. The more rude and simple the peasantry, the 
more the men betrayed a consciousness of pressing perplexity, and 
every woman was in habiliments of mourning. There was neither 
activity, nor curiosity, nor interest of any kind. "When the trains, 
abated of their magnitude and importance, arrived at an unex- 
pected hour at the railroad-stations, there were no crowds, nor 
equipages, nor display of any kind in the streets of Paris, and we 
seemed especially welcome at Meurice's Hotel, of which only a few 
apartments are occupied, and those by Americans exclusively. 

"When we left Auburn last year, a war between France and 
Prussia, the causes of which were laid fifty years ago, and which 
had been four years in preparation, had just opened. The task of 
reorganizing political and ecclesiastical institutions in France had 
become inevitable at the close of the last century. The nations of 
Europe, taking alarm at the boldness of the innovations, combined 
to uphold the ancient Church and state, and to suppress a revolution 
which threatened subversion of all existing authority in Europe. 
France resisted the intervention with a vigor and a power which, 
while it maintained her integrity, had only been acquired by the 
sacrifice of accepting the military despotism of Napoleon in place 
of the republican institutions she had ardently desired to establish. 
Napoleon's ambition urged him to push beyond the bounds of pos- 
sibility the retaliation which France had inaugurated. His throne 
and the sway which he had established from the Atlantic to the 
Adriatic, from the Mediterranean to the Zuyder-Zee, perished to- 
gether in 1814, and a compromise ensued, irksome and hateful to 



"THE MOTHER OF GERMAN UNITY." 691 

both parties. While Austria, Prussia, Italy, and Belgium, had 
conceded to France too much for their own contentment, France 
had been cramped within boundaries too small for her ambition. 
Fifty years of peace, such as Europe had never enjoyed, invigorated 
all the parties. The people of France, impatient of tranquillity 
and contentment incompatible with the glorious memories of Na- 
poleon, of Louis XIV., of Henry IT., and Charlemagne, demanded 
of the new empire political activity and demonstration. Napoleon 
III. complied, and, by a master-stroke of policy, combined with Great 
Britain in giving check at Sevastopol to the ambition of the Czar. 
Having thus established an alliance with Great Britain, an ancient 
enemy and always a powerful rival, Napoleon yielded to the na- 
tional ambition by lending that effective assistance to Sardinia 
which resulted in expelling Austria, and restoring, after a lapse of 
a thousand years, a united and independent Italy. The military 
ambition of France thus renewed demanded new achievements, 
and looked for them across the Rhine. Napoleon, too wise for 
such an expedition, sought to compromise by an expedition to 
Mexico, which he apprehended could be safely made by reason of 
the distance of the field where battle was to be given, the isolation 
and feebleness of that state, resulting from universal discontents, 
and the demoralization of the United States, the only probable 
ally of Mexico, by a civil war promising nothing less than a disso- 
lution of the republic. Each of the two expeditions proved a great 
mistake. The national union of Italy proved, in the language of 
President Thiers, to be " the mother of German unity." The inva- 
sion of Mexico gratified neither the ambition nor the pride of the 
French people, and its hasty abandonment exposed the empire to 
contempt at home and insult abroad. Meantime Prussia, availing 
herself of the defeat and humiliation which France and Italy had 
already inflicted upon Austria, made successful war against that 
rival, and, depriving her of German provinces and allies, consoli- 
dated all of Western Germany into a broad and majestic empire, 
equal, at least in population, resources, energy, and martial spirit, 
to France. The French now impetuously demanded war against 
Prussia. United Germany saw that the hour for her retaliation 



692 EUROPE. 

had come ; she accepted the gage of battle. "When we left home, 
Napoleon on the Prussian border was telegraphing to the empress- 
regent his first success. Before we embarked at San Francisco we 
heard only of French repulses, reverses, and defeats. Then for 
nearly four weeks all intelligence was cut off from us. In Japan, 
we heard that the emperor had become a prisoner at Sedan, and that 
the empress with her son had taken refuge in England. Thence- 
forward, as we advanced westward, the Germans were marching on 
Versailles. France could obtain peace only by reorganization with 
the German army on her soil, and at the gates of her capital. Then 
came the republic, with Gambetta at its head ; then a National As- 
sembly at Bordeaux. Next the organization of the Communists at 
Paris to resist the National Assembly at Bordeaux ; then the re- 
moval of the National Assembly to Versailles in the presence of 
the German invaders, and the election of Thiers as provisional 
president ; then the frightful anarchy of the Commune at Paris, 
only suppressed by the decimation of its leaders by the French 
army, now under the direction of President Thiers, and then a col- 
lapse. What that collapse signified, whether a renewal of anarchy, 
or an exhaustion of the forces of anarchy, no one knew. Timid 
and peace-loving people avoided France and Paris as one might 
avoid Vesuvius when its fires had subsided, but the rumbling, in- 
ternal commotion still continued. The destinies of France, so far 
as they depended upon herself, were in the hands of a popular as- 
sembly at Versailles, a body of seven hundred, consisting of dis- 
cordant factions, each of whom thought its hour for complete tri- 
umph was at hand. These parties had compromised on an admin- 
istration which was allowed to preside and mediate for only one 
reason — namely, that it assumed the responsibility of relieving the 
French nation, as soon as it should be practicable, of the German 
invaders. President Thiers was at the head of the administration, 
and Jules Favre Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
• "When we arrived in Paris, this morning, we found that the 
30th of this month has been assigned for a debate, in which the 
four parties are to decide their mutual contest. The partisans of 
the old regime are expected to strike for the ancient monarchy un- 



PARIS. 693 

der the Count de Chambord. The Orleanists claim the throne for 
the Count de Paris. There are rumors and hopes and fears of a 
coalition between the two monarchical factions. The republicans 
will have neither of these, nor the empire, while the imperialists 
think that these divisions will enable them to restore the emperor, 
who has been released from his German prison, and is now in 
exile in England. 

August 27th. — We dined to-day with Lord Lyons, to whom Mr. 
Seward is warmly attached by reason of his honorable and upright 
conduct as minister of Great Britain to the United States, in the 
early years of our civil war. 

France is a type, although an exaggeration, of modern political 
ideas. Nations will not consent to remain indefinitely under any 
dynasty or personal authority. They not only want frequent 
changes, but they have found out the secret of making such 
changes. In the United States we have fortunately a legal and 
orderly means of gratifying this desire for change. Our Consti- 
tution allows the people to choose their own governmental head, 
but requires them to abide by his authority only four years. Every 
four years they can turn him out. 

August 28th. — In the Bois de Boulogne, instead of the crowd 
of equipages round the cortege of the emperor, under the majestic 
trees and near the crystal lakes, we now found only one carriage, 
which bore Schung Hao, the Chinese ambassador, who came to 
Paris to explain and palliate the Tien-Tsin massacre. He is now 
returning home, after having failed to receive a word of courtesy 
or kindness from President Thiers, who is at the same time con- 
strained, by the sad condition of France, to make no demonstra- 
tion or declaration hostile to China. 

August 31#5. — Mr. Washburne, the United States minister, re- 
mained in Paris during the entire siege, keeping up, as well as he 
could, official communication with the Provisional Government, 
first at Bordeaux, then at Versailles. He was enjoying a short res- 



694 EUROPE. 

pite of absence at the time of our arrival. He came to town on the 
29th, and, after giving us a kind welcome, presented a note from M. 
Kemusat, the newly-appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, inviting 
Mr. Seward to Versailles. Yesterday morning, not caring to use 
what is called here the " American Railroad," we proceeded by car- 
riage to Versailles, passing through the Bois de Boulogne. Splen- 
did St. Cloud is a blackened ruin, and, as it seemed, countless forts 
on either side have been stormed and demolished. Detachments 
of the late contending armies are scattered in the villages along 
the road — now a battalion or brigade of the French army, now of 
the Germans. There seems to be no intercourse between them, 
and doubtless each is weary of the other's presence. Driving 
through Passy, where Franklin resided during his mission to 
France, a curious reflection came over us : How much of this 
strange, eventful career, which France has endured, was due to 
the blandishments of our philosophic, persuasive, and skilful en- 
voy % Certainly he procured the not unwilling consent of Louis 
XVI., and the spirited concurrence of Marie Antoinette, to the 
treaty between France and the United States, which led to .our 
national independence, and consequently to the French Revolu- 
tion, with its awful catastrophe. Could any other than Franklin 
have gained that treaty \ Doubtful. Had it not been gained, 
might not the kingdom of Louis have withstood the tempest ? 

Versailles is a magnificent town of thirty thousand people, who 
enjoy streets broader than those of Vienna, and dwellings not less 
superb than those of Genoa. So lately the headquarters of German 
occupation, and now the seat of the provisional government, the old 
town assumes a tone of activity. The government at Versailles is 
not fixed, like the other courts we have visited, but is provisional and 
almost military. We stopped at the hotel. Grooms would take the 
horses ; as for ourselves, we might sit in the small room adjoining 
the conciergerie, or we might walk through the restaurant and sit 
under the shade-trees in front of the house. More than five hun- 
dred well-dressed, active gentlemen were being served, in groups of 
from two to half a dozen each, with all the clatter and din of a rapid 
breakfast. These were the members of the Provisional Assembly of 



VERSAILLES. 695 

France. -Breakfast over, Mr. Seward, with Mr. Washburne, went to 
the Department of Foreign Affairs. The minister, M. Kemusat, a 
grandson of General Lafayette, is an intellectual and accomplished 
man, and always a firm, consistent republican. The reception, 
though necessarily short, was genial, free, and very friendly. The 
Provisional Assembly was to meet at twelve o'clock. The debate 
might involve a national crisis. M. Thiers, as provisional chief of 
the state, must attend and be deeply engaged during the day. He 
would receive Mr. Seward at his house at eight o'clock in the 
evening. Thence we hastened to the Assembly, and the way was 
opened, by officials of the Government, through an immense crowd 
composed of respectable and intelligent people, to the diplomatic 
box. 

The members, assembling on the floor below, were engaged in 
conversational groups. In the diplomatic box were an English lady 
and gentleman, who politely left the comfortable front seat for Mr. 
Seward and chose the adjoining ones. The box soon filled up with 
persons introduced by their legation, as we had been by ours. 

Promptly, at the appointed hour, the president, M. Grevy, took 
the chair, and called the Assembly to order. There was a numer- 
ous array of clerks and reporters. With great rapidity, official 
reports of the ministry were presented and referred, of course, to 
the respective committees, as in our legislative assemblies ; while 
the Chamber, like them, presented a scene of confusion which ren- 
dered, any attention to the order of business by the members im- 
possible. At length, the special order of the day was announced. 
The question, in effect, was the vital one whether the Assembly, 
which had been convened to organize a government, to make a 
treaty of peace with Prussia, and which had now accomplished that 
object, ought not to resign its powers. A deputy mounted the 
tribune and began to read a speech to the Chamber, hushed in 
silence just long enough to allow the speaker to indicate his posi- 
tion ; then followed a wild uproar of voices ; acclamations from the 
"right," the moderate republicans, interrupted by the extremists; 
and grumblings, challenges, and defiances, from the conservative 
members. The discontented rose in their seats with violent objur- 



696 EUEOPE. 

gations and gesticulations ; the supporters of the speaker rose, 
vociferously applauding him and denouncing the interruption. By 
some arrangement which we did not understand, the representatives 
of the several political parties alternated in the tribune. From the 
moderate republican who began, to the extreme republican sus- 
pected of communism who opposed, the sagacious and loyal Orlean- 
ist, the obstinate and impracticable legitimist, to the crafty but 
non-subdued imperialist — every speaker was received and his utter- 
ances drowned in the same manner ; except that the more radical 
republicans awakened a general burst of defiance and denunciation 
throughout the whole Chamber. The president continually rang 
his bell, and in some way or other the debate went on intelligibly 
to him and to the House, but utterly incomprehensible to the audi- 
ence. 

The stormy scene excited our wonder. In our own Congress, 
the speaker, rising in his place, utters, in a well-considered and 
careful form, an argument which everybody knows will be found, 
the next morning, in the daily press ; will be seized upon and read 
in every city and district ; and have its proper effect in forming the 
national opinion, which, reacting on Congress, will decide the meas- 
ure discussed. The House seldom cares to listen, and the mem- 
bers are engaged in conversation or correspondence. 

This National Assembly of France, on the contrary, seems to 
regard the debate as a combat in which the question is to be de- 
cided by the House itself, at once and according to the balance of 
argument in the heat of passion. "What is still more remarkable is, 
that all this vehemence, violence, and excitement, is displayed only 
by members in their places. "We heard Jules Favre, Louis Blanc, 
Picard, and Gambetta, at the tribune, and their well-constructed 
and carefully-guarded speeches, read without the least excitement 
or gesticulation, would, but for their remarkable brevity, have 
seemed dull and monotonous. 

At the expiration of two hours, the difficulty of reaching an har- 
monious adjustment amid such tumultuous demonstrations excited 
an apprehension that the Assembly would break up in disorder, if 
not with scenes of violence ; and that, before long, hostile forces 



THE FRENCH ASSEMBLY. 697 

might be renewing the civil war, hardly yet completely suppressed. 
Some of the European diplomates, in the gallery, declared that 
France was unequal to her great destiny ; that law, order, govern- 
ment, and society, can only be preserved through central and abso- 
lute power. The violent scene now culminated ; the president using 
his last remedy, announced his determination to dissolve the As- 
sembly if his appeal to order should be disregarded. This brought 
the Chamber to a moment of calm reflection. He then demanded, 
from the latest disturber of the debate, a retraction and apology for 
having indulged in language of insult and threat unbecoming the 
majesty of debate. The speaker, one perhaps of a hundred who 
had equally often ded, thus brought singly before the House, ex- 
plained, regretted, and apologized. Though the House seemed 
willing to forgive, the president was not satisfied ; he demanded 
further apology, and it was given. He announced that the debate 
might now go on, at the peril, however, of the dissolution of the 
Assembly if the bounds of decorum should be passed. The more 
judicious speakers seemed to have reserved themselves for such a 
crisis. After this every speech, while firm, was conciliatory and 
full of concern for the public peace, and showed due and deliberate 
consideration. The danger was over — the National Assembly 
would not dissolve until the Provisional Government should have 
more effectually provided for the exigencies of the state. 

The atmosphere of the hall was hot to suffocation, but all the 
members remained in their seats, and nearly all the audience. We 
left to obtain fresh air, and to improve the three or four hours of 
the day which remained in seeing royal Yersailles. An hour later, 
we were joined by friends whom we had left in the Chamber, who, 
meeting us in the magnificent gardens of the palace, informed us 
that the debate had closed ; that the Chamber had adopted, by a de- 
cisive majority, a declaration that their body is itself a constituent 
Assembly, with all the powers adequate to the government and re- 
organization of the nation. 

At nine o'clock, Mr. Seward, accompanied by M. Geoffroy, for- 
merly charge d'affaires at "Washington, proceeded to the palace of 
Fresident Thiers, the same which was occupied by the King of 



698 EUROPE. 

Prussia during his sojourn at Versailles. The guards, ushers, and 
servants, numerous enough and elegant enough in costume for an 
imperial residence, were in waiting, and Mr. Seward and M. Geof- 
froy were shown up the grand staircase and through the suite of 
antechambers only less numerous and magnificent than those of 
the Yatican, and a series of gorgeous drawing-rooms in which not 
a soul was visible. Passing through these to the farthest one, they 
found a Jady sitting by an open window. This was Madame 
Thiers, the amiable wife of the president. Hising, she gave Mr. 
Seward her hand, and invited him to sit down. Congratulating 
him on his arrival, she entertained the gentlemen for half an hour 
with conversation in perfect English. At the opposite side of the 
room, her sister was conversing with the only other visitor. Dur- 
ing the evening, four or five gentlemen entered the drawing-room, 
and were received by Madame Thiers. Half-past ten o'clock came, 
and Mr. Seward was about taking his leave, when Madame Thiers 
said that M. Thiers had returned utterly exhausted by the day's 
debate, and had thrown himself on a sofa for a few minutes' sleep, 
after which he would join them in the drawing-room. She would 
waken him at once. Mr. Seward, well appreciating the president's 
labors during the day, protested that she should not, but Madame 
Thiers said she was sure that the president would be grieved and 
disappointed. Conducting Mr. Seward across the hall, to an ante- 
chamber, she brought him to a low, broad sofa, where the weary 
statesman was snatching his few moments of repose. Mr. Seward 
begged that he might not be aroused, and insisted on taking his 
leave. Madame Thiers remained with the president, and, before 
Mr. Seward had reached the distant drawing-room door, overtook 
him, with the president, now awakened from his slumbers. Mr. 
Seward saluted him with a compliment expressing his high respect, 
which M. Thiers received courteously, and reciprocated by many 
kind expressions of compliment, and regret that his guest should 
have been kept waiting. He then invited Mr. Seward to remain 
all night at the palace, and to bring his family next week to remain 
at Versailles. Mr. Seward, declining the proffered hospitality with 
many thanks, replied that he was to leave Paris next Tuesday, and 



PRESIDENT THIERS. 699 

had engagements to dine, which would keep him there on Monday. 
" To-morrow, then," said the president ; " come to-morrow." Mr. 
Seward promised to do so, returned with M. Geoffroy to his car- 
riage, and arrived at Meurice's in the early dawn. 

September 1st. — The Chamber of Deputies yesterday brought to 
a happy solution the political question which had so perplexed and 
alarmed France. They declared that the executive power should 
remain with M. Thiers ; that his title should be that of President 
of the French Republic ; that he should hold his place three years, 
and have full power to administer the government, being always 
responsible to the people. All Versailles and all Paris are reas- 
sured, if not content. 

"We dined last evening with President Thiers, the party consist- 
ing of M. Reinusat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Geoffroy, 
and a few of the president's official friends. President Thiers is a 
short, stout man, looking about seventy-five, remarkably erect and 
firm. He has a large and regularly-developed head ; his thick hair, 
perfectly white and stiff, is cut short and brushed scrupulously off 
his forehead and over his temples. His eyes are black, but spar- 
kling and genial, his complexion florid, and even youthful. The 
heavy folds of his white cravat, and his elegantly-cut, tightly-fitting, 
closely-buttoned dress-coat, make him look as if he had just stepped 
out of an old Flemish picture ; and, when he speaks, his gentle voice 
seems less like the commanding utterance of the ruling statesman 
of a great and convulsed nation, than an echo from the past. His 
conversation is vivacious, and imbued not so much with a sense of 
gratified ambition as of sanguine hope and confidence in the resto- 
ration of his country. Explaining to Mr. Seward the reasons which 
had led the Chamber of Deputies to their late important but unex- 
pected decision, he said: " The Chamber of Deputies and myself in 
the present crisis are Siamese twins ; we know that, if we are sep- 
arated, both must die." At dinner, he proposed the health of Mr. 
Seward, in a pretty speech, in which he declared that he regarded 
it as a presage of his success that Mr. Seward should be his guest 
on the first day of his presidency of the French Republic. 



700 EUROPE. 

Mr. Seward replied that, though France had before attempted 
the republican experiment, he regarded the present as the first real 
establishment of that system of government in France. He re- 
minded M. Thiers that his fortune was peculiar as it was felicitous ; 
that he was chosen president not at the command, nor under the 
influence of a standing army, but only as a civilian and statesman. 
He hoped that M. Thiers might remain president as long as Wash- 
ington, and have a line of successors as long and as virtuous. More 
than this no statesman ought to expect, or might dare to desire. 

The president spoke of the difficulties of the position, and of the 
obstinate distraction of opinion in France, so unlike any thing that 
is known in the United States. 

Mr. Seward said in reply : "My hopes for France in the present 
crisis are founded on two very antagonistic grounds. First, that 
the people of France are universally discouraged. I have not heard 
one hopeful expression from any man, of any party, in Versailles 
or Paris, except yourself. Second, you are sanguine enough to in- 
spire the public with confidence. It is fortunate that all parties 
excepting the republicans have exhausted the public confidence. 
The imperialists, having lost the battle-field, on which the integrity 
of France is at stake, have forfeited the right to guide public opin- 
ion. The two royalist parties have not regained the vitality lost 
years ago. The republican party, although it smarts now, as it has 
done on so many previous occasions, unjustly, under the reponsi- 
bility of the fraternization with it of the worst and lowest political 
elements of Europe, still has command of the field. France will 
now, I think, accept the republic, not because she is yet prepared 
to love or trust it, but because she has sufficiently tried and proved 
the impracticability of the kingdom and the empire." 

Madame Thiers and her sister are highly-accomplished ladies, 
with more vivacity than, and quite as practical and energetic as the 
most practical of, our countrywomen. 

After dinner, there was a general and distinguished reception 
of visitors, who had come to congratulate the president. Among 
these were the papal nuncio, the Prince de Chigi Albani, Lord 
Lyons, Prince Metternich, Mr. "Washburne, cardinals, archbishops, 



INTERVIEW WITH M. DROUYN DE LHUYS. 701 

bishops, generals, admirals, deputies from all sides of the Chamber, 
and many ladies. 

It was suggestive of thought to see this plain civilian, this in- 
dependent statesman, who virtually had been proscribed by all 
parties for thirty years, now, at the united command of the French 
nation, called to its head to redeem it from the dangers and dis- 
asters into which it had fallen by rejecting his wise, disinterested, 
and patriotic advice. 

September 4dh. — It is a consequence of the extraordinary condi- 
tion of France at the present moment that society of all kinds is 
broken up at Paris. The timid and prudent citizens, not yet as- 
sured of peace, have not returned to the city. The imperial court 
is dispersed, the Communists are suppressed, and the dominant 
party is with the government at Versailles. At the same time 
nothing is considered permament there. It is only a provisional 
government at best, and the Chamber is already distracted by the 
question of the removal of the government to Paris. This condi- 
tion, however, is perhaps not unfavorable to a study of the political 
tendencies of the times. We, of course, meet persons of all par- 
ties. It has been a pleasure to again see M. Henri Mercier, former 
French minister at Washington, and his successor, the Marquis de 
Montholon, always cordial and friendly in his good wishes for the 
United States. It is a source of much regret that we do not meet 
Signor Bertinatti, formerly Italian minister at Washington, always 
so true, earnest, and sympathetic. He is now Italian minister at the 
Hague, and writes that he has been making preparations to receive 
us there. But the time intervening before our embarkation for 
home is so short that we shall be unable to visit IJolland. An in- 
terview of especial interest was that with M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 
who was the successor of M. Thouvenel as Minister of Foreign 
Affairs at Paris during our civil war, but was replaced later by M. 
Lavallette. M. Drouyn de Lhuys is a gentlemen of fortune, now 
residing at Paris, unemployed, and the newspapers are disputing 
the probabilities of his being called to office by President Thiers. 
He is a tall, stout man, not much, if at all, beyond sixty, with a mas- 



702 



EUROPE. 



sive head, an open countenance, a very kindly as well as intellectual 
expression, and manners at once courtly, frank, and simple. He 
speaks English quite well. The conversation ranged on topics far 
and wide, its chief one being the relations between France and the 
United States past and present. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, though in 
the ministry during the period when he had to treat with the ques- 
tions growing out of the French expedition to Mexico, was not 




DKOUTN DE LHUYS. 



engaged in the inception of that enterprise, and, indeed, had always 
been opposed to it. He is the only statesman, excepting President 
Thiers, whom we have met here that seems hopeful of France. He 
says the worst part of the road is passed. France must give up her 
dream of national aggrandizement and military glory, which are 
the sources of all her misfortunes. He thinks that she will do so, 
and will rise to a higher position than ever. 



DR. EVANS. 703 

It lias been an especial pleasure to make the personal acquaint- 
ance of M. Laboulaye, who is now a prominent republican member 
of the National Assembly. He was a warm well-wisher of the 
United States during our war, and his " Paris in America " has 
been read with interest throughout the United States. He seems 
depressed about the present state of France. 

Acknowledging the cheering encouragement which M. Labou- 
laye had given us in our civil conflict, we thought it our turn to in- 
spire him with courage about the situation of France. The cases 
are not entirely different. In the United States, we wanted to 
abolish slavery, and to save the Union. Either motive was enough 
of itself to make a party, but it was difficult to create a party that 
would accept both as practicable. It is just so now in France. 
The French want a republic, and wish to preserve the integrity and 
prestige of France, but are unable to see how both can be done by 
the same party at the same time. One may be assured, however, 
that, each being right and just in itself, both objects will be se- 
cured, and the time has come when they must be secured to- 
gether. 

Septemher 5th. — One of the effects of the acquisition of absolute 
power seems to be an isolation, which can only be relieved by the 
adoption of unofficial, perhaps obscure persons, as friends, who by 
merit or address become favorites — a relation which, although it is 
sometimes a useful, is often an unpopular one. Dr. Evans, an 
American dentist, was early accepted in that character by Napoleon 
soon after the coup d'etat. Through his long professional service 
he received frequent and valuable tokens of the emperor's regard. 
If it had been doubted whether he did not exaggerate the measure 
of imperial favor he enjoyed, those doubts were entirely removed 
during our civil war, when, on two occasions, Dr. Evans came to 
the Department of State at Washington, with confidential messages 
and inquiries from the Emperor of France. While these messages 
were received, they were, of course, fully made known to the presi- 
dent, and responded to by his authority. At the same time, the 
execution of the trust by the doctor was in all respects moderate 



704 EUROPE. 

and becoming. It is due also to the emperor to say that all his 
personal messages, of that kind received, were frank, and no expec- 
tation raised by them was ever disappointed. Under these circum- 
stances, our visit to Paris afforded a pleasant renewal of acquaint- 
ance with Dr. Evans, and it was a satisfaction to find that, in the 
disasters which overtook the imperial family, there was no loss of 
fidelity on the one side nor of confidence on the other. It was in- 
teresting to hear Dr. Evans's account of the empress's escape from 
France, a transaction in which he took an important part. 

After the battle of Sedan left Napoleon III. a prisoner of war, 
and the empire prostrate, the imperial ministers and members of 
the Corps Legislatif rushed at once to the empress regent, at the 
Tuileries, and told her that she must fly, without an instant's de- 
lay. At seven in the evening, attended by one lady, she left the 
palace by a side-door, where they called a common fiacre. They 
drove in this up the Champs Elysees, a mile or more, stopped in 
the street, dismissed the vehicle, walked a square or two, took an- 
other fiacre and drove to Dr. Evans's door, and rang the bell. Mrs. 
Evans was absent. The doctor was entertaining some friends at din- 
ner, entirely ignorant of the great political transactions of the day. 
A servant went to him and whispered to him that a lady, at the 
door, said she must see him, and could not be put off. The doctor 
returned answer that he was at dinner and could not leave the 
table. The empress, not to be repulsed, walked through the open 
door into the office. Learning this, the doctor excused himself, 
and went to see who the intruder might be : imagine his astonish- 
ment and dismay at finding the empress, and hearing her exclaim, 
" Doctor, you must save me ! " 

Few words of explanation were necessary. The Empress Euge- 
nie, like Marie Antoinette, had made good her escape from the 
Tuileries alone, but with his aid only could she now escape from 
Paris, and find an asylum in a foreign country. Leaving the em- 
press and her attendant in a room with closed doors, Dr. Evans, as 
soon as possible, dismissed his friends ; and, without even informing 
his servants of his purpose, went to his stables, ordered his own 
carriage, and engaged a friend to go with him. The two ladies 



THE ESCAPE OF THE EMPRESS. ?05 

remained unseen until two o'clock in the morning, when the car- 
riage drove to the door. The empress was in the mourning which 
the court had worn since the reverses of the French arms. The 
black crepe bonnet might excite attention ; she laid it aside, and, 
in its place, took a simple round hat of Mrs. Evans's. Then, with 
her lady attendant and Dr. Evans, she entered the carriage : the 
friend rode on the box. The streets were thronged with excited 
crowds, who, however, paid no attention to the unostentatious 
equipage of the fugitives. Arrived at the city gate, it was found 
in charge of a republican guard, who demanded the names of the 
travellers. The doctor gave his own name, address, and profes- 
sion; and, remarking that great events were occurring in Paris, 
handed the guard a morning paper, and drove on. 

Travelling all day, they reached at night a village where Mrs. 
Evans was staying, who supplied the empress with apparel more 
suitable for a voyage across the Channel. Arriving finally at the 
coast, the doctor -procured from an Englishman the loan of his 
yacht, and they embarked near Trouville, a short distance south of 
Havre, at midnight. After a fearful passage of twenty hours, in 
a heavy sea, they finally effected their landing on the hospitable 
British shore. Dr. Evans's first duty, on arriving in England, was. 
to relieve the mother's anxiety for Louis, the prince imperial, who 
so soon after Saarbriick was privately sent from the scene of war 
by the emperor. He found his way to the prince, in spite of the 
guard, who distrusted the visitor. The prince, on seeing him, at 
once exclaimed, " Where is my mother ? " The doctor could 
scarcely suppress his emotion when he concluded his narrative by 
saying : " I conducted the empress to him, and, when I witnessed 
their embrace, and heard their exclamations, ' Louis ! ' ' Mamma ! ' 
I felt that my mission, not only for this emergency, but for life, 
was accomplished." 

How unable we are to judge of the reality and magnitude of a 
danger when it has been safely escaped ! Many, perhaps, believe 
that the empress might have safely remained at the Tuileries ; but 
when we remember the violence of the Communists — the murder 
of the Archbishop of Paris, and other atrocities during and after 



706 EUROPE. 

the siege of the city — there is every reason to be thankful that her 
escape saved maddened Paris from a cruel and atrocious crime. 

September 5th. — It remains for us only to acknowledge the gen- 
erous and elegant hospitalities which were extended to us by our 
friend Mr. Washburne, United States minister, and the United 
States consul-general Mr. Read, Mr. Appleton, and many other 
Americans. It is with sincere pride that we learn that their calm 
courage and fortitude during the political crisis at the capital won 
for them universal esteem and confidence. 

Paris, as we leave it, wears a sad and despairing aspect. All 
parties are humiliated alike in the overthrow of a military prestige 
that they trace back with pride to Louis XIV., and even to Charle- 
magne ; in the payment of indemnities as great as the most rapa- 
cious of French armies ever extorted from foreign states ; and in 
the loss of territories which were at once a resource and an in- 
valuable line of defence. Moreover, no party indulges any san- 
guine hope of a renewal of the prestige and power that have been 
lost. For all this, however, we leave France with stronger hope 
than ever in its future. The people of France are generous, per- 
haps the most generous in the world. If they have been diverted 
from the more prudent path of national development to pursue the 
career of military glory, even that is a fault kindred to national 
virtue. For seventy years France has been the chief theatre of the 
struggles for the establishment of the republic in Europe. If she 
has failed hitherto to achieve it, two things are to be considered in 
extenuation : First, that only one country in Europe has established 
it — namely, Switzerland ; and, second, that Switzerland is embar- 
rassed by none of the grave difficulties which surround France. It 
was the misfortune of France that the Protestant Reformation 
failed there, while it succeeded in the northern parts of the Conti- 
nent and in Great Britain. It was alike the misfortune of France 
that she was called to accept the republic while as yet the principle 
of despotic power was unbroken and unshaken throughout the 
Continent. Still further, it was her misfortune that the sway of 
the republic has been incompatible with the contest which she has 



THE MISFORTUNES OF FRANCE. 707 

necessarily been obliged to hold against a despotic combination. 
But all these difficulties are passed at last. The French nation no 
longer excites the fears or has motives for provoking \the hostility 
of other nations. Left at liberty to retrieve her national disasters, 
all her energies will be applied to that purpose. The promptness 
with which her people meet the financial exigencies of their trying 
situation proves that her resources are adequate. On the other 
hand, such is the influence of France everywhere in Europe that 
every new step which she makes in popular government demoralizes 
all the nations who have been her rivals and her enemies. Bis- 
marck and his imperial master have manifested the highest sagacity 
and ability in humiliating France from her position as the first 
Continental power of Europe, and raising Germany to that proud 
place. But not only Bismarck and the Kaiser, but also the King 
of Italy, and the Emperor of Austria, and the Czar of Russia, and 
even the statesmen of England, will probably find it a much more 
difficult task to hold their respective countries back from the disor- 
ganizing ways of republicanism if France shall persevere wisely in 
that direction. The bugbear of Europe to-day is communism, as 
it is the fear of France. Communism is, nevertheless, in France a 
manageable evil. It is the protest of the laborers of France, now 
largely educated, against the conscription and military service which 
has been a social calamity ever since her great Revolution. The 
agitation of communism will not cease either in France or in any 
other European country so long as ten millions of the laboring 
population of the Continent are withdrawn from productive occupa- 
tion to become consumers. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical 
institutions and prejudices of Europe are so much broken down 
that the republic has no strong obstacle anywhere but the standing 
armies. Let these, by whatever means, be replaced by a voluntary 
and moderate militia force, and every European state will slide at 
once into the republican system as easily, as gracefully, and as 
safely, as Switzerland and the United States have already. 



CHAPTER Y. 

GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND HOME. 

Belgium. — Berlin. — Mr. Bancroft. — Humboldt. — The German Empire. — Its Rise and 
Grandeur. — Its Policy. — -Hamburg. — A Free City. — A Handsome City. — On the 
Thames. — Activity of its Commerce. — Greatness of London. — Government Machinery 
in Great Britain. — Its Slow Working. — Rural Beauty of England. — On Board the 
Java. — Her Passengers. — Montrose-on-Hudson. — Return to Auburn. — Mr. Seward's 
Speech to his Neighbors. 

Cologne, September 6th. — Out of France — across Belgium — and 
on the Rhine, all in twelve hours ! 

Belgium realizes to the traveller its well-known character for 
density of population, and active, inventive industry. It is wonder- 
ful how arts, and even freedom, flourish within this little state, 
which for two thousand years has almost continually been the battle- 
ground of the ambitions of the great European nations. If we re- 
member rightly, there are few Belgian immigrants in America. As 
we passed through to Liege and its rural districts, so full of busy 
activity, contentment, and even gayety, we wondered that there 
should be any. 

Berlin, September 8th. — We arrived here last evening. We 
have seen of Germany enough to show that its climate is neither so 
genial, nor its soil so fertile, nor its resources of forest and mines 
so rich as those of Southern Alaska; nevertheless, it is rich and 
prosperous through the perseverance of its people. 

It is a political and social vacation at Berlin. The emperor- 
king and the empress, the princes and Bismarck, are absent. Baron 



ASPECT OF BERLIN". 709 

Gerolt, so long the respected and beloved Prussian and German 
minister at Washington, is now at Berlin, and it is a pleasure to 
meet him here. 

Mr. Bancroft met us at the station, and has given us a delight- 
ful and quiet home at the legation, on the favorite avenue, " Unter 
den Linden." He enjoys the respect and consideration here which 
he so eminently deserves. Mr. Bancroft is a distinguished excep- 
tion to the rule that great scholars fail of being practical statesmen. 

As might be expected, the air of Berlin is as triumphant as that 
of Paris is sad and despondent. We noticed in Paris that the alle- 
gorical statue of Strasbourg, in the Place de la Concorde, was cov- 
ered with mourning weeds. So we must not omit to mention that 
an allegorical group has been erected here, representing Germany 
receiving with open arms her returning daughters, Alsace and Lor- 
raine. 

The streets of Berlin wear the aspect of a newly-built or modern 
city. While it has none as fine as Fifth Avenue, there is a uniform 
solidity and elegance which we have not yet attained in the United 
States. In activity, industry, and trade, Berlin contrasts strongly 
with Paris in its present condition, as well as with Naples and 
Florence. The parks are well shaded and extensive, but less im- 
posing than those of Vienna, and it would be difficult to decide be- 
tween the two cities in regard to the general appearance of activity 
and vivacity. 

In one of the streets of Mexico there is this inscription on a 
marble tablet : " In this house Humboldt dwelt." We are told of a 
similar inscription on the house he lived in here. We have scarcely 
accustomed ourselves to think of society in Berlin without the ele- 
vating and genial presence of the greatest philosopher of our age. 

We have had the honor of meeting M. Thile, the acting Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Panke, the venerable historian, and 
several of the celebrated savants for whom Berlin is so justly dis- 
tinguished. 

In the history of civilization there has been nothing more won- 
derful than the development of the German Empire. Brandenburg, 
the feeblest of perhaps forty inconsiderable states, a state without 



710 EUROPE. 

numbers, military force, arts, or science, two hundred years ago had 
the courage to challenge a place among the countries of Europe. By 
the adoption of a military system, at that time essential to every 
power, but more rigorous than any other, ancient or modern, by the 
skilful development of resources, and by the practice of parsimony 
so great as to provoke ridicule, by constancy in resisting aggression, 
and boldness in taking advantage of opportunity, this little king- 
dom of Brandenburg, in the forty-six years of the reign of Frederick 
the Great, doubled its territory and population, and rose to the 
attitude of one of the great Continental powers. Harassed, sub- 
jugated, and ravaged in the Napoleonic wars, Prussia only applied 
herself all the more devotedly and energetically to the increase of 
her strength and resources. With a sagacity which has had no 
prototype, she originated a new philosophy, an original literature, 
and schools of music and criticism. With this intellectual progress 
Prussia has had the wisdom to combine moral and social culture, 
equality of rights, personal freedom, and rigid justice of administra- 
tion, which have won for her the grateful sympathy and affection 
of other German states. At least since the time of Frederick, 
Prussia has practised an eminently wise and just moderation. 
Content with an attitude always of self-defence, and to wait for 
provocation, she reserved her strength, until the intolerable preten- 
sions of Austria required a contest with that power, which resulted 
in her bringing under her protecting flag, with their consent, the 
North-German states around her, while she neutralized the South- 
German states, formerly dependencies of her rival. Nothing in 
politics is more calmly sublime than the deportment of Prussia 
when that recent great aggrandizement excited the jealous alarm 
of France. France secretly proposed to favor the extension of 
North-German jurisdiction over the South-German states on condi- 
tion that Prussia would consent that France should absorb Bel- 
gium. Prussia refused. France then sought offence in the offer of 
the Spanish Cortes of the throne of that country to a prince of the 
house of Hohenzollern. The Prussian Government disavowed, and, 
when that failed, the prince declined, but the empire of France 
would have an insult when the original cause of complaint had 



PEUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 711 

been removed. So the emperor instructed his minister, who of- 
fended the dignity of the Prussian sovereign, and was dismissed 
for it. Then France declared war. Prussia came into a war, the 
only one, perhaps, of modern times in which the advantages, moral 
and physical, were combined on the same side — a just cause, a de- 
fensive position, convenient preparation, and the strongest military 
power. There is one circumstance in this great event peculiarly 
gratifying to the United States, and which cannot but prove useful 
to the world. It seems as if the process of renaissance in any 
nation begets a sympathy and friendship for the American Repub- 
lic. We do not know the secret of the great Frederick's sympathy 
with the United States, in their Revolution. He was a capricious 
man, and had a proclivity for French philosophy and politics, and 
a dislike for England. Whatever may have been the cause, he 
was an admirer of our institutions, and in 1786 made with us a 
treaty, based on an acknowledgment of the highest rights of man. 
Through all her own vicissitudes and ours, Prussia has adhered to 
the policy and sentiments of Frederick, in regard to the United 
States. Prussia was the first of the European powers to join us in 
a policy of justice and liberality toward Mexico. Prussia was the 
first of the European states to acknowledge the American principle 
of freedom of naturalization and denationalization. With Russia 
she has been a faithful friend, and, like Switzerland, she has en- 
grafted on her own political system the American principle of gov- 
ernment by confederation of states. It is a proud thing to see that 
system established by the most powerful of the states on the Euro- 
pean Continent. It promises nothing less, though perhaps in a 
distant future, than the abolition of military despotism for main- 
taining the balance of power. Germany, if her magnanimity shall 
be equal to her prosperity, will be content hereafter to promote 
the welfare of mankind, through the arts of peace, rather than to 
seek greater dominion by war and violence. 

Hamburg, September 12th. — Crossing the river Spree, passing 
pretty Charlottenburg, and reaching the Havel, we leave behind 
us the suburban cultivation and taste of Berlin, and enter on a 



712 EUROPE. 

plain where sand and marsh intermingle. Only Germans could 
utilize a soil so worthless, but they use it in every way. For cen- 
turies the writing- world has relied upon these plains for their 
goose-quills. Of national frontiers, there have been more than 
enough on this plain. These boundaries have now become merely 
departmental divisions of the German Empire. We came to the 
Elbe at "Wittenberg, and followed its banks to Hamburg. 

You realize, on the moment of arrival at Hamburg, that you 
are in a free city. No demand of passports, and no custom-house 
inspection of luggage, no espionage, no intrusive curiosity. Ham- 
burg is not so majestic as Vienna, so poetic as Yen ice, so classic as 
Florence, nor so elegant as Paris, and yet it is a rich and beautiful 
city, pleasant to look upon. "With exquisite art, they have gath- 
ered the rapid little Alster, no larger than the east branch of the 
Potomac at Bladensburg, into pretty crystal lakes, lending a Vene- 
etian charm to the beautiful palaces and villas of the merchant- 
princes which crown the shores. And Hamburg has one beauty 
which even Yenice has not — the beauty of broad and ornamented 
lawns and gardens. But the Germans arc a practical people, and' 
the beauty of Hamburg is its smallest boast. A commercial city, 
the oldest of Northern Europe, it is the only one that has never 
known a decline of prestige. The early commerce of the Elbe 
was lost, like that of the Mediterranean ports, as a consequence of 
the discoveries of Columbus and Yasco de Gama. But it has been 
effectually replaced by a richer and more comprehensive one. The 
flags of all nations are here, and vessels from all ports crowd the 
channel. Hamburg's most profitable commerce is that which is at 
the same time most beneficial to the United States. It is the chief 
port of emigration. Our glimpses of Germany, though they have 
been hasty, have modified our opinion on the character of this emi- 
gration. The German emigrants go, not so much to escape from 
want, as from a spirit of emulation and improvement. 

Here, under the apprehension of inclement weather on land, 
and winter-storms at sea, we reluctantly relinquish our projected 
journey through Denmark and Sweden to Russia. Our explora- 
tion of four continents ends to-day. "We embark on the steamer 



ON THE THAMES. Y13 

Berlin. Her cabins are filled with merchants and their families 
who two days hence will be un distinguishable in the streets of 
London, and her decks are crowded with sheep which will be 
served up to them as real " Southdown mutton." 

On the Thames, September lMh. — The broad estuary contracts 
so rapidly as to bring into view the coast outline. Before reach- 
ing Gravesend, the activity of the shipping impresses you with the 
conviction that you are approaching the greatest commercial mart 
of the world. Steamers, pouring out clouds of black smoke, are 
crossing in what seems a maze. Sailing-vessels, with a fair wind, 
are passing upward, and vessels with sails furled are towed by tugs 
down the river. The undulating shores appear, on which trees, 
orchards, gardens, and lawns, relieve the brown of autumn. On 
our left is the entrance of the Medway, on our right the harbors 
of Lea and Thames Haven. Steam seems to be a despot on land 
as well as on the water. Stationary engines at docks, wharves, 
manufactories, locomotive-engines hurrying to and from London, 
meet your eyes everywhere. We passed the Great Eastern, at an- 
chor, in dignified retirement. At the beginning of our war it was 
suggested to buy this noble vessel. It was a conclusive objection 
that, although she could carry ten thousand troops, she could not 
reach a landing-place in the insurgent States. Equally impracti- 
cable for commerce, she proved her adaptation to only one of the 
enterprises of the day, but that perhaps the noblest of them all — 
the laying of ocean telegraphic cables. 

Entering the great marine gate-way of England, every thing 
seems in strong and cheerful contrast to the countries where we 
have been. No Indian wigwam, no heathen temple, no mosque, 
no Catholic or Greek cathedral, no fortification, no grotesque cos- 
tumes, no half-clad or naked savages, Arabs, serfs, fellahs, or coolies 
— only on shore a universal manufacture, and on the water merchant- 
vessels, bearing the world's exchanges, and ships-of-war to defend 
and protect them — no despotic nor imperial nor feudal power — the 
law supreme and equal — London shows, at the first glance, that it 
is the great heart of human activity. Every enterprise of war or 



714 EUROPE. 

peace, every campaign, canal, and railroad, on either continent of 
this great globe, derives from London the credit which is its life. 

The river contracts. Gravesend, Woolwich, White Bait Tav- 
ern, the Dreadnaught, Nelson's flag ship at Trafalgar, all crowd 
fast upon us. 

And now we give up our keys to the polite custom-house 
officer, who is content with the pretence of search. And now we 
leave the steamer, and study, as we drive on, the scenes of low Lon- 
don life, not the illustrations of Cruikshank, but the actual charac- 
ters portrayed by " Boz." Here is Captain Cuttle, and there is the 
little wooden midshipman at the door of Solomon Gill's shop. Here 
is Quilp's figure-head, and here is .Susan Nipper, and even little 
Nell. We go on through the city, we turn up Bishopsgate Street, 
and pass the Tower and St. Paul's, and so on through crowded 
Cheapside, Charing Cross, and Co vent Garden, and St. James's, 
until we stop at last at Fenton's Hotel. Who could have expected 
to see all London before reaching his lodgings % 

London, September 15th. — As for writing observations upon 
London and England so familiarly known by tradition, history, 
poetry, romance, and the drama, to say nothing of travellers' books 
— as for doing this in the short space of seven days, we are not 
going to try. 

Mr. Seward spent the morning in Downing Street with Mr. 
Hammond, the experienced Under Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, and the no less accomplished Mr. Merivale, Under Secretary 
for India. With the former he discussed the policy of the Western 
nations in regard to China, and seemed to please the latter by the 
testimony he bore to the prudent, wise, and beneficent administra- 
tion of Earl Mayo, Lord Napier, and Sir William Muir. 

The various bureaux seem to show that the machinery of ad- 
ministration in Great Britain has been contrived to secure caution 
and deliberation at the expense of time; while in the United States 
the more simple constitution of the departments gives greater 
promptness and dispatch, at the risk, perhaps, of precipitancy. We 
no longer wonder at the blunder of the British Government in fail- 



ENGLISH EUEAL LIFE. 715 

ing to stop the Alabama, when we see that no secretary conlcl 
move in that question until he had the studied opinion of the " law 
advisers of the crown." The Government of the United States has 
only one legal adviser, the Attorney-General, who sits in the Cab- 
inet, and advises, like other heads of departments, without having 
questions specially referred to him, except on extraordinary occa- 
sions. 

The Council for India, the Council for the Colonies, the Board 
of Trade, and the other administrative councils, are each of them 
a numerous body, and examine and pronounce upon every ques- 
tion, before the presiding minister takes action. In this complex 
machinery the British Government does not differ from all the 
other governments of Europe. Hence the tedious and vexatious 
delays which have brought diplomacy under popular suspicion and 
reproach. 

It is only in parts of France, and in England, and the United 
States, that rural life has an aspect of contentment and happiness. 
While the dwellings of the rich landholders here immeasurably sur- 
pass, in magnificence as well as numbers, the most ambitious rural 
residences in the United States, the villages and cottages of the 
peasantry, on the other hand, hold no comparison with the cheerful 
rural towns and comfortable dwellings of the American farmers. 
But the minute subdivision and high cultivation of the fields, to- 
gether with the general elegance of plantations and gardens, give 
to the landscape of England an air of repose, comfort, health, and 
beauty, which, as yet, has not been approached among us. To these 
attractions the historical associations, as well as those of poetry and 
romance, impart an additional- charm. 

We think the impression that London makes upon an Amer- 
ican, who sees more of political, commercial, and social activity 
and energy at home, is one of dulness and monotony, leading 
him to wish to escape from it as soon as possible. On the con- 
trary, when he comes to the rural scenes of England, he wishes 
that he might remain there always. Such, at least, were the pass- 
ing sentiments awakened in us by our short excursion from Wind- 
sor through Eton to Stoke Poges. There is a softness of the 



716 EUROPE. 

atmosphere which seems not only to harmonize but to blend with 
the dark-green shade of the gardens and lawns, and 

"All the air a solemn stillness holds." 

We close our visit in London with a deep conviction that Eng- 
lish and American society are approximating to each other— that in 
the United States we are assuming more of the constancy and con- 
sistency of the English habit ; while in England there is a manifest 
tendency to adopt the active and vivacious ways of American life. 
There are sufficient grounds to explain the jealousies which, rising 
into antipathies, have until just now alienated the two nations. It 
was unwise to expect that the British nation would forgive the 
Revolutionary separation, and would honor her new and rival kin- 
dred state, so long as the stability and perpetuity of the Federal 
Union were deemed experimental. They were necessarily deemed 
experimental, all over the world as well as in the United States, so 
long as the institution of slavery threatened dissolution. So far 
from its having been a matter of just surprise that the Southern 
cause received so much of sympathy and encouragement in the 
aristocratic circles of England, it is rather to be wondered at that it 
received no more, since it promised nothing less than our inferiority, 
not only in present prestige but in destiny, to the empire from 
which we had so boldly separated. Since slavery has ceased to ex- 
ist throughout the United States, there can be no new cause of 
alienation. The two nations must be rivals, not in arms, for neither 
has need for conquest ; but in science, arts, literature, agriculture, 
commerce, and navigation, and in the invention which leads to suc- 
cess in all things. Rivalry of this sort is magnanimous rather than 
inimical. Moreover, each nation is inclined, by peculiar character 
and habits, to enterprise and exertion, in different fields from those 
of the other. 

On hoard the Steamer Java, Queenstown, September 2Uh. — ¥e 
are taking our last look on foreign lands, exactly a year from the 
day when we had our first glimpse of them as we approached the 
coast of mountain-crowned Japan. How suggestive is barbarous 



STEAMER PASSENGERS. 717 

Japan, rising buoyantly to grasp civilization, while Ireland, a civil- 
ized land, endures the agony of a broken heart ! But Ireland is 
beautiful in her sadness, and the sympathies of mankind assure her 
of a future. 

Here, on the Java, we have an equal number of Americans 
going home after short visits of business or pleasure in Europe. 
All classes are represented — merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, 
engineers, professors, clergymen, college-students, students of mu- 
sic and the fine arts — more inquisitive, more active, more commu- 
nicative, and less economical in dress and habits than the English. 
They are social and polite ; they talk incessantly, and mostly of 
" business " and American politics, of emigration, education, inter- 
oceanic railroads, intercontinental telegraphs, civilization, and prog- 
ress generally. They assert their opinions confidently, and ask, 
"Why not ?" The gentlemen drink champagne as freely as if it 
were a native beverage, and smoke large " Habanas," where Euro- 
peans allow themselves a pipe or a cigarette. The ladies, in unex- 
ceptionable toilets and full of vivacity, sustain their share in con- 
versation upon all topics, from the fashions and the opera at Paris to 
the glaciers of the Alps, the arts of Italy, the literature of Germany, 
and the politics and religion of all nations, showing no special re- 
gard for the theories and opinions of their husbands — indeed, with- 
out special inquiry, one would hardly know which of the ladies are 
married, and to which of the gentlemen. The children are finished 
little people, who have been abroad to study the European lan- 
guages, and have learned them all, with a great deal more. The 
girls read French novels and the latest English poems, and the boys 
play at cards and chess. 

It is only when we are leaving Europe that we realize the im- 
mense increase of the foreign travel, intercourse, and trade, of the 
United States. Steamers plying between European and American 
ports are crossing the Atlantic every day in the year. The Cunard 
line, only one of many, employs twenty steamers in this great 
trade. The stormy Atlantic navigation has become so common 
and so certain as to have lost all its terrors. It is a sad reflection 
that this great navigation is conducted chiefly in foreign instead of 



718 EUROPE. 

American bottoms. But the loss of our heretofore prominent share 
in it is one of the penalties of our civil war — a loss which will be 
all the sooner retrieved by the liquidation of the national debt and 
the restoration of the national currency. Meantime, we may be 
content with the employment of the energies of our people in 
developing resources greater than any other nation possesses. One 
of the Cunard proprietors says that the profits of the line are not 
derived exclusively or mainly from cabin-passengers, or even from 
freights, but from the transportation of emigrants. We discovered 
a similar fact in regard to the trade of the Pacific. If the annual 
accession of three hundred thousand immigrants, who generally 
are of the humbler classes of Europe, has already produced a 
beneficent modification of society and government, then it cannot 
be doubted that this perpetual and always increasing intercourse 
between America and Europe must exert a strong and healthful in- 
fluence upon European nations. Doubtless the United States send 
many frivolous and idle pleasure-seekers abroad, and at the cost of 
much wealth, but they send at the same time vastly more of enter- 
prising, inventive, and thoughtful inquirers and observers; and 
that cannot be a losing intercourse for us which brings us foreign 
labor, industry, invention, and skill, in compensation for the annual 
surplus of our material productions. 

2£ont7"ose-on-Hudson, October 2d. — A dense fog compelled us 
to go to anchor just below Quarantine at three o'clock this morn- 
ing. In apprising our friends of our coming, we had request- 
ed that they would meet us in the harbor of ]N"ew York. The 
Java had anticipated the expected day of arrival by twenty four 
hours, so all things favored our desire to avoid the fatigue and 
delay of landing in the city. On a signal, our friends met us with 
a steam-yacht at our anchorage. The custom-house inspector 
cleared our luggage promptly ; the Quarantine officer made no 
hesitation in giving us certificates of health ; the passengers of the 
Java gave us three cheers on our disembarking. 

We touched at the Battery, and at Jersey City, to take on board 
other friends waiting there, and at two o'clock the Henry Smith 



RETURN HOME. 719 

landed us at Yerplanck's Point, near the house of Frederick "W. 
Seward, to the surprise of the citizens whose obscure port had never 
before witnessed a direct arrival from Europe, since the day when 
Hendriek Hudson first landed there from the Half Moon. 

Auburn, October 9th. — Commodore Yanderbilt's private car, the 
finest and most comfortable conveyance we have found in the 
whole circuit of the globe, brought us over the New York Central 
Kailroad to our destination here at nine o'clock this evening, ex- 
actly one year and two months from the day of our departure. "We 
entered the station by its eastern door-way. A crowd of kind 
friends and neighbors met us at the station, and attended us home, 
where, in their behalf, Mr. Myers made an appropriate speech of 
welcome. • 

Mr. Seward replied : 

" The words which you have spoken to me, and the pressure of 
the hand which you have given me, are what I knew I might ex- 
pect, and yet what I would willingly have avoided. I have taxed 
my neighbors and friends so often and so long that I have begun 
to feel that, when I go away, I would like to slip away from them, 
and to soften the sadness of parting as the nearest of domestic rela- 
tions do when they part. And, when I come back, I like to go in 
upon them by surprise, and meet them in their accustomed walks 
and ways, rather than to trouble them to come out to greet me. 

"Still it is what has always happened to me in the course of so 
many years. Whenever I have had occasion to go out of Auburn, 
sometimes nearer and sometimes farther, sometimes upon errands 
of duty, sometimes of study, sometimes of labor, sometimes of pub- 
lic responsibility, and sometimes of private interest, I never was 
suffered to part from my friends here without demonstrations of 
their affection. 

" It has often been my lot to come back among you. Some- 
times from fields of achievement which have excited, or might ex- 
cite envy — sometimes defeated and with mortification, sometimes 
with domestic sorrow, which cannot be lightly spoken of, and some- 
times with public anxiety which could not be expressed — yet I 
54 



720 EUROPE. 

have never come home without being received as a neighbor and 
friend. 

" Such neighbors deserve all the affection and all the gratitude 
I can give them. I can only ask you to believe that, in all my 
wanderings far and near, there has not been a day or hour when I 
have not remembered them, and prayed God that what I might not 
be able to do for their welfare and happiness, might be done through 
other agencies. 

" My friends,. we are met together, I trust, not to part again. 
I have had a long journey, which, in its inception, seemed to many 
to be eccentric, but I trust that all my neighbors and friends are 
now satisfied that it was reasonable. I found that, in returning 
home to the occupations which were before me, I was expected to 
enjoy rest from labors and cares which were thought to have been 
oppressive and severe. I found that at my age, and in my condi- 
tion of health, ' rest was rust ; ' and nothing remained, to prevent 
rust, but to keep in motion. I selected the way that would do the 
least harm, give the least offence, enable me to acquire the most 
knowledge, and increase the power, if any remained, to do good. 

" In the course of my wanderings I have seen, not all the na- 
tions, but some of the nations, of every race on the earth. I have 
looked the whole human family in the face, and taken by the hand 
and conversed with my fellow-man in his lowest degradation and 
in his highest stage of civilization. I have found no nation so dis- 
tant, and no race so low, that the character of an American citizen 
did not secure to me, not merely safety, but also respect, considera- 
tion, and affection. You may judge, therefore, whether in return- 
ing to my own country I have less reason to love and honor it. 

" My friends and neighbors, I have trespassed beyond your 
patience and my own strength in speaking these words to you. I 
give you my sincere and heart-felt thanks, and hope to-morrow, and 
on early future days, to learn that happiness has been in all your 
dwellings, and that all the enterprises in which you are engaged 
have been crowned with success, as I know there will be at all 
your firesides, during the long winter before us, the same affection 
and friendship which have been the great happiness of my life." 




MAT SHOWING MR. SEWARD'S ROUTE TIIROUOH ASIA, AFRICA, AND EUROPE. 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Absalom, tomb of. 597 

Abydos 526-530 

A. C. Farnham & Co 254 

Aden 470,473 

Agra.. 387 

Akbar, Emperor 388-395 

Alaska 33 

Alaska, steamer 226 

Albert, Prince. 361 

Albuquerque 454 

Alcock, Sir Rutherford 137 

Alden, Timothy 409 

Alexander the Great 397 

Alexandria 570-574 

Alexandrian Library 575 

Ali Murad Effendi 535 

Allahabad 385, 437 

Alps, the 685 

Altai Mountains 118 

Amenophis III 544 

Americans in Egypt 504, 505 

American legation at Yeddo .- . 53 

officer in Turkish service 646 

officers in Egypt 573 

Antonelli, Cardinal 674, 675 

Apollo, steamer 605, 606 

Appleton, Mr 706 

Arcot 338, 339 

Arcot Mission 344 

Arabia 469 

Arab kindness to animals 524 

Ariadne, Marryat's vessel 573 

Argyll, Duke of 349 



PAGE 

Armenian merchant , 347 

Asceticism 445 

Aschmann, Captain 687 

Ashuelot, U. S. steamer 110, 111, 206 

Assouan 555, 556 

Athens. . .". : 627-632 

Auburn, departure from - 3 

Auger, General, kind attentions of . . . . 9 

Augustine Heard &.Co 254 

Aurengzebe 410 

Austria, remarks on 666, 668 

Avery, Mr 27 

Azhar, Mosque of 511 

Baboo, a Hindoo 354 

Bachelor, Captain 69 

Bailey, Mr 232, 255 

Bancroft, Mr 709 

Bandong 298, 302 

Regent of. 299 

Bannermen, Chinese 143 

Banoo Begum 398 

Barrackpore . . 368 

Barrow, General 386 

Batavia. 280, 284 

Bayard Taylor 409, 413 

Beardsley, Mr., TJ. S. consul 579 

Bedouin Arabs 488 

Beebe, Mr 206 

Behar, steamer 316 

Belgium 708 

Bell, Admiral 79 

Bellianeh 526 



'22 



IXDEX. 



Benares 372-384 

Maharajah of 375 

Bengal, Bay of 351 

Benzoni. 680 

Bergh, Mr 120 

Berlin 708, 709 

Berne 687 

Berthemy, M 137, 686 

Bertinatti, Signor 701 

Bethany 599 

Betts Bey 483, 525, 566, 571 

Bethlehem 594-596 

Bettos, Japanese foot-boys 66 

Beust, Count 665, 666 

Bhan Daji 448, 449 

Birds, Calcutta 359 

Birthday, Mr. Seward's seventieth 533 

Black Hole, Calcutta ' 364 

Blacque Bey 648, 653 

Bliss, Dr 605 

Bogue Forts 234 

Bom Jesus, Church of, at Goa 455 

Bombay 442-4 

Book-store at Yeddo 67 

Bosporus, the 643-646 

Boston 353 

Botanical Gardens, Batavia 311 

Bradley, General 11 

Bramin beggar, a 343 

Bridges, litigation about 7 

British and French in China 176 

British hospitality 438 

Brittan, Miss 370, 371 

Brown, John P 634-636 

Bruce, Sir Frederick 133 

Buda-Pesth 658 

Buddha 378 

Temple of 159 

Buddhist temple and bonzes in Japan. 43 

Buddhists in China 159 

Buddhism, Chinese 242, 243 

Buitenzorg 285 

Bull, Pardon & Co 254 

Bulwer, Sir Henry 572, 573 

Burne, Major 352 

Burlingame, Anson. 97, 131, 133, 138, 

143, 168, 169, 200 

Busteed & Co 271 

Butler, Mr., a colored American 101 

Byculla Club 451 

Mr. Seward's speech to 460 



PAGE 

Cairo 492, 567 

old 508 

Calcutta 352, 353 

California, caprices of civilization. ... 27 

Caliphs, tombs of 509 

Calvary 588, 589 

Cambodia 266 

Queen of 268 

Cambyses 542 

Camoens at Goa 458 

Campbell, Governor, of Wyoming 11 

Canada, remarks on 5 

Canals of Egypt 521 

Canal, Great Chinese 117, 224 

Canton 233, 252 

fisheries 254 

Cary, Alice 464 

Cascade at Bandong 303 

Caste in India 333 

Cataracts of the Nile 560 

Cauverypak 340 

Cavour, Count 683 

Cawnpore 386 

Cedar Rapids, an inchoate Western 

city 7 

Cemetery at Assouan 557 

Cesnola collection 615, 616 

Ceylon 320-322 

Cham-Ping-Chow 194 

Chee-Foo 106, 107 

Cherif Pacha 504 

Cheyenne 9, 10 

Chicago, a marvel of progress 6 

China, agriculture of 119 

its national flag 133 

relations of, with Russia 138 

decay of 153 

materialism in 153 

deities of 158 

diplomacy of 169, 170 

Romanism in 195 

civilization in, Mr. Seward's re- 
marks on 258-261 

Chinese Americans 134 

baby 188 

banquet 144 

boudoir 148 

cabinet 140 

carriages „ 1 74 

civilization 258-261 

emigration 253, 254 



INDEX. 



723 



Chinese emperor's summer palace 176 

funeral 127 

inns 194 

long nails 149 

returning home 30 

tablet hall 157 

Temple of Buddha 159 

theatricals 220 

wall 172, 182, 185, 186 

Chin-Kiang 210, 225 

Chin-Lun 203 

Chin-Wangti 189 

Chi-Tajen and Sun-Tajen.97, 100, 169, 

197, 198 

Citadel of Cairo 505 

Civilization of the Mediterranean, 681, 682 

Clive, Lord 334, 339 

Cockburn, Admiral 331, 447, 475 

Cochin China 262-268 

Coles, Mr 166 

Coliseum, the 672, 673 

Cologne 708 

Colorado, U. S. steamer, -95, 102, 208, 

226, 228 

Colored settlement at Chatham 5 

Colossi of Thebes 543, 544 

Concert at Calcutta 361 

Concessions, Foreign, in China 95 

Confucius 163, 164 

Temple of t „ , 161 

Constantinople, arrival at 633 

charms of 637-639 

Cook, Captain 574 

Copts, the 508 

Columbia, steamer 320 

Comprador, Chinese 227 

Cornwallis, Lord 334, 335 

Council Bluffs 7 

'Council, Legislative, of Madras ; 335 

Cunningham, General 408 

Cyprus 614 

Daibutz, statue of Buddha 47 

Dak, the 406 

Dalling, Lord 571 

Dancing-girls, Javanese 304, 305 

Danube River 663, 664 

Darwin, his theory 440 

Dashur, Pyramids of. 565 

Day, loss of a day 32 

Decima, island of. S6 



PAGE 

De Long, minister to Japan, 38, 49, 62, 

69, 73 

Delmonico of Yeddo, the 63 

Dutch steamer, a 274-279 

Dwarfs, Javanese .300, 305, 306 

Delaplaine, Mr 665 

Delhi 404-413 

Delos 621 

Delta of Egypt 569 

De Montholon 137 

Demjera, Temple of.. 531-533 

Dervishes, dancing 511-513 

Detroit m . 5 

De Trobriand, General 15 

Dogs, Chinese 112 

Doorga, the monkey-god 383 

Drew, Mr 214 

Drouyn de Lhuys, M 701, 702 

Dutch colonization 297 

Eden, Calcutta ». . . . 360 

Echo, a marvellous 224 

Edfou 554 

architect of 554 

Edinburgh, Duke of 208, 319 

Egypt, population of. 491, 492 

Egyptians, ancient 576, 577 

Egyptian kings, tombs of. 546 

relics 506, 507 

E. J. Sage & Co 254 

El-Aksa 592, 593 

Elcho 22, 23 

Eldridge, Mr 374 

Elephanta 448-450 

Elephantina 555 

Elephants at Putteeala 417, 422 

England, rural life in 715 

English and American society 716 

Epaulets, influence of 122 

Ephesus 617-621 

Esneh 551,553 

Eugenie, Empress 498, 504 

escape of. 703-706 

Evans, Dr 703-706 

Farnham, Mr., U. S. consul, Bombay.. 442 

Fellahs of Egypt 523 

Finkelstein, Benjamin 579 

Firman, Sultan's, to Mr. Seward 584 

Fisheries, Northern treaty for 34 

Fitz, Mr 217-219 



724 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Fitzgerald, Sir Seymour 442, 444 

Florence 670, 671 

Flotilla, Mr. Seward's, on the Pei-ho, 

113-115 

Flowery Forest Temple, Canton 241 

Forbes, Murray 231 

Formosa, island of. 230 

Forte, H B. M. ship 331 

Fort St. George 334 

William 370 

France, condition of 690-692 

Franco-German War, near approach of, 31 

Franklin 694 

Fraser, Mr. and Mrs 209 

Freeman, William. .9, 70, 71, 126, 130, 

192, 208, 425, 426 

French affairs 706, 707 

Assembly 695-697 

and British in China 176 

colonization in the East 265 

inscription at Phila? 561 

Furs at Peking 136 

Fusi Yama 33, 34 

Futtehpore Sikra 388, 390 

Gallatin 688 

Galle, Ceylon 320 

Ganges River 373 

festival on 375 

Geneva 685 

Genoa 682 

Geoffroy, M 697 

Gerolt, Baron 709 

Ghizeh 517, 566 

Gindy House 347 

Park, Madras 346 

Goa, excursion to. 451-459 

population of 457 

Gobat, Bishop 600, 604 

Golden Island 225 

Goshen, land of 489 

Government House, Calcutta 358 

Grant, President, at Chicago 6 

Mr 438 

Great Britain, Government of . . . . 714, 715 

Greece, modern 632 

Greek architecture 550, 631 

costume 622 

church 600 

language 632 

Grevy, M 695 



PAGE 

Grey, Dr. . 235, 249 

Gyascutus, the 33 

Hainan Island 262 

Hamburg 711, 712 

Hamlin, Dr 641 

Hammond, Mr 714 

Han River 216 

Hau-Kow 216 

Han-Yan 217, 219 

Harem of the Khedive 493, 513-515 

of U. S. vice-consul at Thebes.. . 563 

Hart, Robert 196, 197 

Hastings, Mr., Mr. Seward's old friend, 26 

Hatason, Queen 541, 548 

Hawes, Captain 113, 206 

Hay, Mrs 605 

Heber, Bishop 330 

Helena, Empress 587, 589 

Heliopolis 503 

Herodotus 502 

H. Fogg & Co 254 

Himalayas, first view of 415 

a glance at 431 

Hindoo girls' school, Madras 328, 348 

names 329 

tenderness for animals 440 

Hiogo 76, 77 

Hoang-ho, mouth of 104 

Holy Sepulchre, Church of 585-587 

Honan Temple 240 

Hong-Kong 230-232 

gamblers : 255 

Hoogly River 351 

Horses, Japanese care of 67 

Horsford, Captain 415, 417, 425 

Hue, Father 217 

Hughes, Archbishop 677 

Humayoon 406, 409* 

Humboldt 709 

Hungary 658-663 

Hurdwar 415 

Hyden ■ 172 

Idol-worship, folly of 566, 567 

India, secret of its dependence 330 

government 332 

caste 333 

discontent with English rule .... 357 

finances of. 365 

scenery 373 



INDEX. 



725 



PAGE 

India, opium 3*74 

history 405, 406 

Mr. Seward's remarks on leav- 
ing 465-469 

Indians, destiny of 23 

Inland Sea of Japan 83 

Interpreter, Japanese 57 

Ishtabashi, Mr 69, 73 

Island, a floating 277 

Isles of Greece, the 621 

Ismailia 483-487 

Ismail Pacha, Khedive of Egypt. . 486, 515 
Israelites' passage of the Red Sea, 481, 482 
Italy 669-684 

Jacobs, Mr 352 

Jade, Chinese 239 

Jaffa 578, 579 

Japan, coast of. 33 

population of 38 

" concession " to foreigners in. . . 38 

people of. 38, 45 

costumes 39 

barbers 39 

gathering of crops 43 

laws about trees 43 

tea-houses 44 

history of 52-54 

Foreign Office 54 

artisans 66 

especial reasons for prudence. ... 75 

Christianity in 87, 88 

society and civilization. 88-93 

Japanese ambassadors to the United 

States, their fate 65 

travellers 262 

Java 280-318 

populousness of 284 

scenery 286 

government 287 

climate 288 

vegetation 289 

birds . „ 289 

fruit 291 

agriculture 294 

Dutch management of 297, 

298,312, 314 

steamer 716, 717 

Jay, John 665 

Jehanara, tomb of. 410 

Jejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee 443 



Jerusalem 581-604 

population of 596 

Jesuits in China 140 

Jewell, Mr 271 

Mr., U. S. consul at Penang 316 

Jew, an American 598 

Jews of Jerusalem 600-604 

Jews' wailing-place 601 

Jiddah 479 

Jubbulpoor 438 

Juggernaut, car of 343 

Jugglers, Hindoo 423, 424 

Jumna, banks of the 431 

Musjid, the 410, 411 

Junk, Chinese 105 

Kali Ghaut 362 

Kalka 433, 436 

Kamakula, ancient capital of Japan ... 46 

Kanagawa, excursion to 44 

Kang, Chinese 181 

Kang-Hi, Chinese emperor 140 

Karnak 534-538 

columns at 539 

Kenneh 564 

Khedive of Egypt 486, 490-492, 

566-568, 570 

Khedive's yacht 574 

Kiahta 146 

Kiamil Pacha 637, 648-650 

Kiamil, Princess 649, 650 

Kincob, manufacture of 383 

Kinder, Captain 82 

King Cotton 401 

King, General 11 

Knapp, Charles 483 

Kossuth 662, 663 

Kootub Minar, the 406, 407 

Kublai-Khan 166 

Ku-Kiang 214, 223 

Kung, Prince , 142 

letter from 198 

interview with 199-203 

Kussowlee 433-435 

Laboulaye, M 209, 703 

Larnica 615 

Laurens, Henry , 335 

Lebanon 606 

Le-ming-Che, Taou-tai of Han-Kow. . . . 226 
Lesseps, M 484, 485, 487 



726 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Levantine steamer 578 

Lincoln, Mr 334 

Lion-whelps 351 

Little Orphan Island 213 

Little Stork Pagoda 221 

London 714 

Louis XIV 688 

Louise, Sister 195 

Low, Mr., 127, 130, 132, 137, 138, 141, 

146, 168, 170, 201, 204 

Low, Mrs 199 

Lowe, Mr 296 

Loyola, Ignatius 140, 455 

Lucknow 386 

Ludlow Castle 404, 413 

Luke, tomb of 618 

Luxor 534, 535-537, 563 

Lydda 580 

Lyons, Lord 693 

Madras . . . . , 327 

surf at 350 

Mahmoud of Ghuznee 389 

Canal 570 

Major, Captain 454 

Malacca, Straits of 275, 317 

Malays. 276-278, 313 

Mamelukes, weapons of 505 

Mandarin procession, a 96 

Mangum, Mr. and Mrs . . . . : 88 

Manockjee Cursetjee 444 

Marco Polo 346 

Mariette Bey 501, 507, 561 

Marmora, Sea of 682 

Marryat's ship Ariadne 573 

Marsh, Mr 670 

Martin, Dr 199, 202, 203 

Mataria 504 

Mayo, Countess of 352 

Earl 352, 353, 366 

death of, note 437 

McAlister, Mr 352 

McAlpine, W. J 653 

Medeenet Haboo 545, 550, 553 

Mediterranean Hotel 583 

Meerut 414 

Memnon 544 

Temple of 527 

Memphis 565, 566 

Menes ... 528 

Mercier, Henri, M 701 



PAGE 

Merivale, Mr 714 

Middleton, Mr 114, 192 

Mikado, the 52-54 

palace of the 70 

Mr. Seward's audience with... . 69-74 

Ming tombs, China 189 

Miracle at Goa. . . .• 456 

Missionaries, American 29 

at Peking 204 

Mogul Serai 375 

Mohammed Tauphik 504 

Mongolians, the 185 

Monkey, a tippling 525 

Monkeys, thieving, their malice 441 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, letters 

of. 496 

Montholon, M 701 

Montrose-on-Hudson 718 

Mormons, The ■. 16, 17 

Mormon polygamy 20, 21 

Tabernacle 17 

Mosque of Mehemet Ali 506 

Pearl 389 

Mount of Olives, mosque on 598 

Muir, Lady 386 

Sir William 385 

Mule, an excited 438 

Music, Hindoo 336, 337 

Musician, a Japanese 64 

Myer, Governor-General of Java . 289, 293 
Myt-Rahyneh 566 

Nagasaki 82, 85, 87 

Names, historical and geographical .... 7 

Nanking 211 

Nan-Kow, China 179 

Pass 180, 183 

Napier, Captain 327 

Lady 328 

Lord 327, 328 

Naples 681 

Napoleon I . . « 686 

Nautch-girls 343, 377 

Necker 688 

Nectanebus 555 

Nederlanden, Koningin der 274, 275 

Neilgherry Mountains 339 

Nerbudda, a night-voyage on the 439 

New York, arrival at 718 

Western 4 

Niagara Falls 4 



INDEX. 



727 



PAGE 

Nile, the 520-568 

cataracts of. 560 

native mode of crossing 562 

Nippon-bas, the famous bridge 60, 61 

Nomenclature of mountain scenery. . . 13 

Noubar Pacha 504 

Nourmahal, the light of the harem. . . 398 
Nubians 556 

Obelisk quarry at Assouan 658 

Ocean Banner-Temple, Canton 240 

Olga, Queen of Greece 632 

Oliphant & Co 254 

Omaha, characters at 7-9 

Omar, Mosque of 590-593 

On, city of. 503 

Opium in India 374 

Opium-smoking in China 247 

Ord ; Governor of Penang 316 

Orsova 6, 58 

Osaka '-...' 77,79-82 

Oude, King of 366 

Prince of. 366, 367 

Pacha at Cairo, conversation with.. 568, 569 

Pacific mail line steamers 29 

Pacific Ocean 29 

Page, Mr., U. S. consul at Port Said. .. 575 

Pagodas, Chinese 122 

Palace, Imperial, at Delhi 411, 412 

New, at Constantinople 646, 647 

Palestine, impressions of 607, 614 

population of. 611 

invaders of 612 

religions of 610 

women of. 611 

regeneration of 613 

improvement in 614 

missions in 614 

telegraphs and railroads in 614 

Palikao, battle of 126 

Panch Mahal, the 392, 393 

Pariahs 343 

Paris 690 

Parker, Theodore, tomb of 671 

Parkes, Sir Harry, British minister to 

Japan 60, 178 

Parsees, the 444-447 

Parsons, Major 435 

Passengers on steamer Java 717 

Passports 686 

Patna 373 



PAGE 

Pe-chee-lee, Gulf of. 104-107, 207 

Pei-ho River 109, 110 

Peking, first sight of. 127 

Mr. Seward's entrance into 129 

wall of. 132 

foreign population of. 134, 136 

Legations at. . . ". 136-138 

palace in 164 

birds in 165 

Pells, Mr 281, 283, 287 

Penang, island of 317 

Pepin^King. 686 

Peruvian bark in Java 307 

Pesth 659-661 

Pharos 574 

Phike 559-561 

Philippine Islands 271 

Phoenix, the Arabian 503 

Photographer, a Chinese 151 

Pigeon-English 206 

Pilate, palace of 590, 600 

Pillsbury, Mr 107 

Pindarrie 432-436 

Plymouth Rock, steamer 209, 226 

Poet, a Portuguese, at Goa 459 

Poets, Chinese 145 

Point de Galle 320 

Politicians at Omaha 8 

Polygamy in Egypt and Utah. . . . 496, 497 

Pompey's Pillar 572, 573 

Pondicherry 323 

Poon-ting-gua's villa 244, 245 

Pope Pius IX 675-679 

Porcelain Tower, the 212 

Port Said 574, 575 

Portuguese Empire. . , 458 

courtesy 459 

settlement, Madras 3*5 

Po-Yang, Lake 213 

Prawiro da Kedya 296 

Preachers on steamer China 29 

Prime-minister, Japanese 71 

Proverfce, steamer. 262 

Prussia, historical sketch of. 709, 710 

Ptolemy Philopater 554 

Pulpit Rock 14 

Pumpelly, Mr 174 

Putteeala 416-430 

Maharajah of. 360, 415, 421-423 

Prince of 427 

Pyramids, the 498-502 



728 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Quarries at Assouan 558 

Kadhe, Adhepathe 298 

Rahden, Saleh-, Javanese prince 312 

Railway, East India 373, 374 

Madras and Arcot 338 

Ralston, Mr., entertainment by 26 

Rameses 529 

II 541 

sarcophagus of. 584 

tomb of . . . 547 

Ramesis III., temple of 549 

Ramleh 579; 580 

Randall, A. W 4, 84, 102, 209 

Ranepet 339, 340 

Ranke, Dr 709 

Read, Mr 706 

Red Jacket, anecdote of. 32 

Red Sea, the 479-482 

Rehfues, Baron, German minister at 

Peking 137 

Remusat, M 695 

Reno 24 

Rhodah 518, 564 

Riberio, a Portuguese poet 459 

Rice cultivation in India 341 

Risley, Hanson A 4 

Miss. 129, 130 

Robert College 641, 642 

Rochefort, Count, French minister at 

Peking 137 

Rocky Mountains, uses of 12 

Rodgers, Admiral 95, 98, 102, 

106, 107, 113, 140, 145, 186, 192, 

201, 202, 208 

Rodman, Mr 114, 192 

Romanism in China 195, 196 

Rome 671-681 

Church of, in China 139 

Rose, Mr 214, 223 

Rosetta 575 

Rublee, Mr 687 

Russell & Company 95, 231, 235 

Russia, relations with China 138 

Russian minister at Peking 136, 137 

Ryots 341 

Sacramento, society of 25 

Said Pacha '. 484 

Saigon city 264, 265 

River, mouth of. 263 



PAGE 

Saint Thomas, apostle 469 

Sakkara, Pyramid of. 518, 556 

Saladin 505 

Salina, Augusta 544 

Salt Lake city 15 

San Francisco 26-28 

Sao Januario, Viscount de 454 

Sarnath, Buddhist ruins at 379 

Sawa, Japanese Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs 568, 570, 572 

Science, Hall of, at Peking 139 

Schofield, General 27 

Schung Hao, Chinese ambassador 693 

Scudder, missionary 344 

Secundra 388, 396 

Senter, Mr 77 

Separation, a settlement on the Rocky 

Mountains 12 

Septimus Severus 544 

Seraglio 640 

Serampore 369 

Server Pacha 636 

Setis 529, 540 

Seven Sleepei's, the 618 

Seward, Mr., declines Japanese invita- 
tion to a great banquet 49 

his interview with Japanese for- 
eign minister 56-59 

gives audience at U. S. consulate. 65 

audience with Mikado 69 

opinions on France.. 102, 103 

meets an acquaintance on the Col- 
orado 106 

friendly reception at Tung-Chow, 125 

entrance into Peking . . 129 

audience of imperial cabinet. . . . 140 

age 144 

views on the Great Wall of China, 

186, 187 
discussion with Mr. Drew on Chi- 
nese affairs 214 

assault on, at Han-Kow 222 

speech at Kong-Kong 255, 257 

half-way round the world 319 

remarks on finances of India. . . . 365 

speech at Bombay 460 

remarks on India 465-469 

seventieth birthday 533 

conversation with a pacha at Cai- 
ro 568, 569 

remarks on ancient Egyptians, 576, 577 



INDEX. 



729 



PAGE 

Seward, Mr., firman from the sultan. . 584 

impressions of Palestine. . . . 60*7, 614 

reception at Constantinople 633 

interview with the Turkish Sultan, 

652, 654 

remarks on Turkey 655-657 

reception at Vienna 665 

dinner with M. Thiers 698-701 

in Downing Street 714 

return home 719 

speech at Auburn 719, 720 

G. F., consul 95, 112, 114, 192 

Olive Risley 4 

Shah Jehan 398, 400, 401 

Shan-Tung, steamer 102, 113, 206, 207 

Shanghai 94, 98-100, 207 

Promontory 104, 106 

Sharon 578 

Sheba, the tombs of the Tycoons 59 

Sheik, Selim Chisti : . . 391, 392 

Shen-Tajen, a Chinese poet 203 

Shepard, Mr., U. S. consul at Yeddo..38, 69 

Sherman, City of. 12 

Shishak, King 541 

Shoshones, remnant of , 23 

Shumsh-oodeen-Altamsh 40S 

Sierra Nevada, ascent and descent of, 24, 25 

Silas E. Burrows & Co 254 

Silver Island 225 

Simmons, Mrs 209 

Singapore.. 271-274 

steamer 315 

Siout 518 

Siva, temple of 363 

Sjiandjioer, Java 295 

Slavery, conservation of. 25 

Smith. Archer & Co., China merchants, 

235, 254 

Smith, Dr 673 

Smithers, Mr 621 

Smuggling in China . . 234 

Smyrna 616 

Socotra , 469 

Somnath, gates of 389 

Soumalans at Aden 474 

Southern cross, the 564 

Sphinx, the 500, 501 

Staempfli, Mr 688 

Star of India, order of 361 

States, new, influence of. 11 

Steamer America, meeting on the 30 



Steamer China 29 

Stewart, U. S. consul at Hiogo 76 

Stone, Mrs 493 

Story's Cleopatra and Sibyl 680 

Strabo 546 

Suez 4S2 

Canal 483-487 

Sugar of Egypt 564 

Sultan, Abdul Aziz 635, 636 

Pacha 516, 563-565 

Turkish, Mr. Seward's interview 

with 652-654 

Sumatra 275, 276 

Sunda, Straits of. 278 

Surabaya 293, 295 

Susa 683 

Swinging round the circle 357 

Swiss President 687 

Switzerland, politics of 6S7-6S9 

a miniature America 687 

Syra 621, 622 

Synagogue, American 602 

Taj-Mahal 398, 399 

Taku 108, 109 

Tankoeban volcano. 307 

Templars, Knights 663, 670 

Temple of Agriculture 155 

of Heaven 154 

of the Great Bell, China 175 

Sir Richard 364, 403 

Tenno, see Mikado. 

Thames River 713 

Thebes . . 534-540, 550, 563 

Theodosius, edict of 561 

Thiers, Madame 698 

President 695, 698, 699 

Thile, M 709 

Thomas, Saint 345 

Thoutmosis II. and III 548 

Thousand-mile tree 14 

Tien-Tsien, massacre at 98, 101, 

110, 111, 115, 117, 132, 195, 196, 205 

Tigh, Major 415-436 

Tilden, Captain 123 

Timber from Corea 117 

Tinos 621 

Tokaido, the Japanese highway 44 

Tombs, Chinese, Mr. Seward's remarks 

on 190 

Ming, China 189 



730 



INDEX. 



Townsend House, Ogden 15 

Travancore, steamer 228 

Tuckerman, Mr., U. S. minister to 

Greece 630 

Tung-Chow 117, 121, 125, 205 

Tung-Lu 213 

Tung-Tajen, a Chinese poet 203 

Turkey, observations on 655-667 

Turkish women 644 

Tycoon, the Japanese 53, 81 

Tycoons, tombs of, at Sheba 59 

Umballa 414-415 

United States, progress of trade 717 

Universalists, Lincoln's story of 472 

Upton, Mr 686 

Utah, a wonderful success 21 

Valide, Princess 492, 493, 568 

Van Dyck, Dr 605 

Van Valkenburgh, U. S. minister to 

Japan 77, 138 

Varna 654 

Vasco de Gama 346 

Venice 669 

Venosta, Visconti 680 

Verplanck's Point 719 

Versailles 694 

Vesuvius 681 

Via Dolorosa 590 

Victor Emmanuel 680, 683 

Vienna 664 

Vindhya Mountains 438 

Visigapatam, Maharajah of 376 

Vlangally, General 29, 132, 136, 203 

Wade, Mr. and Mrs 137 

Wady, a 489 

Wahsatch Mountains 13, 14 

Walsh, Mr 38, 70, 71 

a ball at his house 68 

Wang, Captain 113, 114 

Wan-Siang 142, 143, 167-169, 170 

Warden, Mr 102, 132, 227 

Mrs 98, 101 

Washburne, Mr 693, 706 

Weber Canon 14 

River 14 

Webster and Adams, anecdote of.. . . . 125 



PAGE 

Welti, Mr 687 

Wessner, Miss 464 

Westropp, Sir M. R 460 

Whampoa 234 

Wheaton, Chinese translation of. 167 

Wheeler, Lieutenant 407 

Williams, Dr 132, 168 

Wilson, Captain 593 

Winslow, Admiral, hero of the Kear- 

sarge 27 

Women, Chinese, abasement of. 2.28 

Women, Turkish 644 

Wood, Mr 620 

Woolsey, Dr., daughters of 606 

Woosung 94, 102, 208 

Wu-Chang 217-219, 221 

Wurtz, Mr 670 

Wyoming, Territory of, 11 

Xavier, St. Francis 87, 455, 456 

Yang-Fang, a Chinese pawnbroker.. . . 147 

smoking-room 151 

wife 148 

Yang-tse 225 

Yang-tse-kiang River 209-21 2 

Yang-tse-kiang, mouth of. 102, 103 

Yeddo 77 

visit to 49 

how built 59 

artisans, artists, and manufac- 
turers 66 

bay of, storm in 50, 51 

Yellow Sea 94, 102, 103 

Yokohama, arrival at 37 

bay of. 37 

Young, Brigham 1 7-20, 22 

Colonel 404, 413 

Mr 271, 274 

Youssef and his donkey 553 

Yuen-Min-Yuen, China 176-179 

Yung-Lo, Chinese emperor. 175, 190, 191 
Yussef Effendi 590 

Zachariah, tomb of 597 

Zenana mission 370, 371 

Zemindars 341 

Zuaking 223 



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